Sitting down and playing a nice, relaxing game is a great way to spend time, especially after a long and stressful day at work, school, or any other busy time. Here’s a list of the top 10 best cozy games on Steam.
Top 10 Cozy Games on Steam – November 2023 Edition
The games on this list are all about being relaxing, adorable, or having generally cozy vibes. While this can take on many genres, you should feel carefree and content as you’re playing while still enjoying challenges such as questing, collecting resources, or completing other game-specific objectives. Some popular games that fit these trends are Stardew Valley, the Animal Crossing series, and Minecraft.
However, today, I’m primarily focusing on recent releases to let you find games you may be unfamiliar with. Here’s a list of the top 10 cozy games, in no particular order, you can find on Steam today.
10. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life
The Harvest Moon series, now known as Story of Seasons, has historically been well-known for why farming simulator games are as popular as they are nowadays. The series’ latest addition, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, continues this trend by remaking the original 2003 Harvest Moon version.
At its core, you live as a farmer who grows crops, raises animals, and befriends villagers, with opportunities to raise a family and lead their path however you wish. You can also participate in festivals, go out for a relaxing night of fishing, or stroll around town and befriend everyone you see. It is also relatively slow-paced compared to similar games, allowing you to relax and focus on what’s happening around you rather than trying to speedrun money-making or friendship-building.
Whether you’ve played Harvest Moon for decades or have never played a game from the series before, it’s worth checking out, especially if your interests align with traditional farming and life sim games.
9. Station to Station
This next entry is for everyone who enjoys relaxing puzzle games! Station to Station is a voxel-styled train game that has you building stations and railways using resource cards to get your trains from point A to B. You can play through multiple regions, each with its budgets, environments, and objectives, and turn them into prosperous transport areas.
Part of Station to Station’s charm is the ability to make the game as relaxing or challenging as you’d like. You can create small, easy difficulty levels if you prefer an easygoing, tranquil playthrough. Alternatively, you can raise the difficulty and modify the level’s size, biome, and cliff height to cater to your interests.
Overall, the game focuses on relaxation and charm rather than stressful puzzles that have you sitting for hours wondering how to complete one level. Station to Station is worth checking out if turning an otherwise grey space into a colorful, beautiful world through your trains sounds like a pleasing experience.
8. Sticky Business
If you are creative and enjoy artistic expression, look no further than Sticky Business. Sticky Business allows you to run a sticker creation business by fulfilling orders, unlocking new designs, and interacting with customers through messages to learn more about their interests.
While some strategy and planning involve how you’ll sell your stickers and progress through its story, you’re free to unleash your creativity as you make your stickers and decide what designs to buy next. You can make animal stickers if you want to show off some cute animals. If you enjoy observing the beauty of nature, you can make plant-themed stickers.
I’ll admit it; half of my stickers later in the game were food-themed. Before that, I mixed words to create inspirational quotes.
Although you’ll occasionally deviate from these to complete the main story, you can still get creative with navigating customer requests and preferences. Overall, it’s a relaxing and adorable experience that lets you experiment with neat sticker designs, colors, and themes.
7. Wylde Flowers
Returning to farming games for a moment, Wylde Flowers follows much of the same formula as standard farming sim games with a few twists and turns. Alongside resource collecting, farming, and socializing with villagers, Wylde Flowers incorporates magic in the mix as you delve into spell-casting and witchcraft.
While initially starting slow with a primary focus on character introduction and familiarizing yourself with gameplay mechanics, it quickly turns into a mix of farm and ranch animal management, questing, and enjoying the events Fairhaven offers. You can take this at your own pace, allowing you to progress as fast as possible or take your time to relax and explore the world.
6. A Little to the Left
Next, we have a brief return to puzzle games. A Little to the Left is a relaxing, cozy puzzle game that has you organizing various household items over dozens of levels. Throughout your playthrough, you’ll quickly learn what adorable creature is partially responsible for these messes, which we can easily forgive within seconds of realizing.
Admittedly, some of these puzzles are tough, and learning their mechanics and alternative ways to solve them can take some time. I still remember multiple that I struggled with here and there and even had to ask friends for help. However, A Little to the Left rewards you for experimenting with different solutions, making the effort feel that much more enjoyable.
5. Potion Permit
Potion Permit mixes resource-gathering, puzzle-solving, and friendship-building into a traditional-styled RPG. As you run around, defeat enemies, and collect items to create potions, you’ll help villagers cure illnesses while learning more about the world.
While RPGs can be slightly stressful for some, especially for those who want min-max to progress as fast as possible, you can just as easily sit back, relax, and appreciate what Potion Permit offers, especially during activities like fishing and petting animals around town.
4. Smushi Come Home
What better way to spend a quiet day than to run, swim, and glide around as a tiny mushroom? Smushi Come Home has you playing as a small fungi protagonist, and your main objective is to explore the world, chitchat with animals around the forest, and do everything you can to return home.
As a bonus, the game is adorable. Just look at Smushi’s little hat!
Much of Smushi Come Home’s gameplay is traveling around the map, collecting resources, and experiencing cute and funny dialogue with the forest’s inhabitants. You can do this at your own pace, progressing as quickly as possible or taking twists and turns to explore your surroundings. It is cozy, cute, and relaxing, which, sometimes, is all we can ever ask for.
3. Lil Gator Game
In the same wholesome, cute group is Lil Gator Game, a casual exploration game where you’ll do just about anything you’d like. From making new friends to building castles and swimming around on boats, Lil Gator Game gives you plenty of opportunities to venture around the world as an aspiring, adorable adventurer.
Along the way, you’ll also get up to goofy shenanigans, from cracking jokes with other animals to picking up items such as the “Pointy Floppy Thing”. Lil Gator Game is all about getting up to lighthearted mischief while learning about the world around you and watching everyone have a happy, fun time living life to their fullest.
2. Beacon Pines
The next item on this cozy Steam game list is Beacon Pines, a storybook-styled game following a cute, albeit slightly eerie, world and atmosphere. While you wouldn’t expect words like “cozy” and “creepy” to be in the same sentence together, these are precisely what this game aims to be, and it pulls it off well.
During your playthrough of Beacon Pines, you’ll play as the main character, Luka, as he travels around the world, befriends others, and uncovers mysteries in the world. From a gameplay perspective, you’ll branch out along different storybook paths and can even go back and modify pieces of the book’s narrative; you create and shape Beacon Pines’ story.
1. Slime Rancher
Slime Rancher and Slime Rancher 2 follows the adventures of Beatrix LeBeau as she wrangles slimes, collects plorts for money, and ventures around the Far, Far Range to uncover secrets about the island. The first and second games cover similar areas, slime species, and gameplay mechanics, with some key differences in story and appearance.
Slime Rancher offers multiple modes and difficulties to test your speed and skills against tackling Tarr slimes. Outside of this, you can explore the land, find every slime type available, and experiment with gadgets to turn your ranch into one full of happy, energetic slimes and adorable decorations. While things are lively during the day, the night is a cozy and tranquil landscape where you can sit back and relax or continue your adventure as usual.
This final entry marks the end of our list of the top 10 best cozy games you can play on Steam right now. If you’re interested in discovering other great games, check out the eight best free games on Steam you can play right now.
