Can a game be too cozy for comfort?
Why my comfort pick isn’t what you think it is
My guest for this issue of Multiplier is Rick Salter, the co-founder and creative director of Hojo Studio. In addition to developing homegrown indie releases like The Godfeather and Inflatality, the studio is also involved of the recently announced State of Play NSW Indie Games Advisory board. You can find follow Hojo on X and Bluesky.
Fergus: When I was growing up, my access to games that I could cozy up with over the holidays was relatively limited. There was whatever I had in the house, whatever was available at the video rental down the street and (maybe once or twice per year) whatever was available at my closest shopping center.
Nowadays, thanks to both the advent of digital distribution and indie gaming, the breadth of options available at my fingertips is dizzying in its magnitude. If I am looking for a specific style of game to cozy up with for the holidays, I’m spoiled for choice and there’s no shortage of developers out there looking to fill that niche. And yet, for all these many cozy games, the one that I find the coziest is sometimes just World of Warcraft.
While Blizzard’s persistently popular fantasy MMORPG is far from an obvious cozy game, the slower pace and sometimes-anachronistic design feel like an old friend at this point. Stuffed to the brim with things to do and coated in the usual polish that Blizzard is known for, it makes for a sharp contrast to the legion of cozy games that are out there nowadays.
No shade to those who like them but I feel like any game can be a cozy game if you want it badly enough. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably selling something.
Rick: These are interesting conditions for choosing a game to play – holidays x cozy. For me, the main factor with the holidays is constant diversion to family time. Swims in the pool, lunch with rellies, opening or giving presents, hitting the egg nog a little too hard. All solid life choices. In these situations you can’t really choose a game that requires deep focus or attention. Nor can it demand huge emotional investment. In other words, you don’t want to be putting down your mince pie to resume a gut-wrenching playthrough of The Last of Us. So what to play?
Podcast games! Games where you can be listening to politics or tech news on your phone while carving up armies of darkness on the TV. Diablo IV is the obvious choice here – though Path of Exile 2 just hit early access too - these games make very few demands above your standard lizard brain gamer response, they’re rhythm games more than RPGs in a way, and you can drop out whenever you like if visitors arrive or the BBQ’s on fire.
One amazing game I discovered this year, and my indie pick of 2024 is Caravan Sandwich, a narrative platformer adventure game with no combat, a gorgeous art style, literally zero consequences for failure and just lovely design, story and pacing throughout. Believe it or not, it manages to pull off a kinda of “cozy post-apocalypse” vibe, and despite the development team being from France it feels perfect for an Australian summer.
The last option I’d choose in these scenarios are replays of games you’ve already enjoyed once. Sometimes I blast through big budget games too fast because I want to beat it. Holidays are a great time to do it over again and take the scenic route. Elden Ring works great for this. This is a game nobody would define as cozy the first time they play it. But by the fifth playthrough, it becomes a journey you can really start to relax into, smell the flowers, let your guard down, and get suddenly murdered by a giant meat jar.
Fergus: It’s funny that you mention replaying older games. I’ve been working my way through the revamped Warcraft Battle Chest that Blizzard announced a few months back and while Warcraft and Warcraft 2 remain as frantic and flavorful as I remembered, it’s the at-times blunt simplicity of these older games that really goes a long way to making them so leisurely to return to. I’m sure some of that will fade as I get closer to Warcraft 3: Reforged but when we’re talking cozy games and podcast-friendly fare, the common thread is that we’re talking about games that don’t ask that much of you.
That’s not to say that a cozy or podcast game can’t have depth or difficulty (you mentioned Elden Ring before) but to gesture at the idea that a lot of games ask more of you than they should or for more than you’re willing to give as someone just looking to kill a few hours or for something that’ll keep your hands busy while they catch up on a few podcasts. On some level, all games ask something of the player and some ask for more than others. Maybe cozy games are just those that gamble on the idea that less can be more?
Rick: Maybe the real definition of a cozy game is any game that gives you that familiar, nostalgic feeling. This could be replaying OG Warcraft like you described or even a brand new game that just FEELS old and familiar.
Weirdly I got that feeling from Cyberpunk 2077 when I played it the first time. Beneath all the bleeding edge raytracing and GPU-melting visuals, I could see a game aching to play like old school Deus Ex or Vampire: The Masquerade. I think that’s also why they made it first person. It was a throwback to a very Noughties vision of immersion before the Ubisoft open-world fetch quest era descended.
It’s like trying to figure out your own personal gaming equivalent of watching Love Actually (or more appropriately Die Hard) at Christmas. Every night on December the 24th we pull Christmas crackers, sing carols and have one last crack at beating Promised Consort Radahn with a bleed build.