With Autumn on the horizon, it’s almost time to hide away from the chilly weather under a blanket whilst playing our favourite video games. Recently, ‘Cozy’ or ‘Hygge’ gaming is a trend that has taken the gaming community by storm, especially with popular releases such as Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but also due to a rise in indie games.
Searches for the phrase ‘cozy’ games has risen 155% in the last year, the games themselves are most associated with being fun or relaxing to play, compared to your typical adventure, sports and shooting games.
Therefore, Casumo has analysed the public’s new favourite social media app and search engine, TikTok, to find some of the top recommended cozy games for autumn. These were then indexed and ranked out of 20 to conclude which games were the best overall. These factors included:
- Metacritic Score
- Availability on PC, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
- % of positive sentiment online (over the last 30 days)
- Number of Instagram hashtags
The Top 20 Cozy Games For Autumn 2022
| Game | Metacritic Rating | Availability | Positve Seniment (30 Days) |
Instagram Hashtags | Total Score /140 | |||
| PC | Playstation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch | |||||
| Stardew Valley | 87 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17% | 14,600 | 127 |
| Night in the Woods | 85 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 21.20% | 1,000 | 126 |
| SpiritFarer | 84 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.20% | 11,125 | 125 |
| Wytchwood | 78 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.20% | 2,400 | 117 |
| The Wild at Heart | 76 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 21.00% | 943 | 117 |
| Unpacking | 86 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.20% | 884 | 116 |
| Cozy Grove | 71 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.40% | 1,100 | 110 |
| Coffee Talk | 74 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.70% | 879 | 108 |
| Calico | 57 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 17.20% | 2000 | 106 |
| Littlewood | 81 | YES | NO | NO | YES | 17.20% | 5,947 | 101 |
| Garden Story | 73 | YES | NO | YES | YES | 17.10% | 39,786 | 98 |
| Toem | 80 | YES | YES | NO | YES | 17.20% | 2,300 | 97 |
| Hoa | 68 | YES | YES | YES | YES | 16.80% | 130 | 95 |
| Townscraper | 63 | YES | NO | YES | YES | 17.20% | 54 | 76 |
| Ledgend of Zelda Breath of Wild | 97 | NO | NO | NO | YES | 21.20% | 5,666 | 75 |
| Animal Crossing New Horizons | 90 | NO | NO | NO | YES | 18.40% | 9,300 | 73 |
| Cat Tails | 75 | YES | NO | NO | YES | 17.80% | 812 | 69 |
| Little Misfortune | 57 | YES | NO | NO | YES | 17.70% | 953 | 65 |
| Cat Café Manager | 69 | YES | NO | NO | YES | 17.90% | 270 | 64 |
| Pokemon Ledgends Arcaus | 83 | NO | NO | NO | YES | 18.70% | 366 | 56 |
Stardew Valley topped the rankings, earning a score of 127, out of a potential 140! This open-ended simulation game involves the player moving to the countryside to take over their deceased grandfather’s farm. Throughout the game, the player can grow crops, look after livestock, socializing with the townspeople and much more.
The game is commonly compared to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which also found itself on the list – but much further down. Whilst Animal Crossing is a huge franchise created by Nintendo spanning years, it’s indie counterpart scored more points for being cross platform, able to be played across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and even on mobile!
In second place, was Night In the Woods – a single-player, exploration game that takes place on in a town populated by ‘zoomorphic’ humans. Whilst this game has a slightly darker tone than some others in the ranking, it’s become a fan-favourite amongst cozy game enthusiasts.
Other well-known names, such as Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild and Pokémon Legends: Arcaus also made the ranking but ranked quite low compared to their more indie counterparts.
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