Exploration may not be the first thing that players think of when they’re looking to pick up a cozy game,but there’s no question that it can make the experience far better. Cozy games have evolved significantly over the years, with each new generation looking to offer something new.
Some of the best cozy games allow players to explore beyond their comfy homes and flourishing farms to discover new environments, challenges, and secrets.Not every cozy game succeeds at creating rewarding exploration, though.
Spiritfarer: 5 Best Ship Upgrades
A detailed list of the best ship upgrades available in Spiritfarer. These upgrades will help you uncover new areas, quests, and resources.
Simply creatinga bigger and more open worlddoesn’t always cut it, if there’s nothing to really do in that open space. Typically, a player has a lot going on already, so to really make exploration worth it, cozy games need to make it feel impactful.
The following titles always make exploration well worth the effort.
10A Short Hike
Hiking has never been cozier
A Short Hike
A Short Hike literally has exploration in the title,and it’s plenty cozy. Players will have to reach the summit of a tall mountain, but the best part is they can get there any way they want.
That said, certain paths can lead players to meet NPCs and discover treasure. I found myself taking my time while hiking and trying to meet all the quirky NPCs that I could, and that worked out well for this game.
The best part of A Short Hike is thatit encourages players to try new paths and challenges. The only way to find certain treasures, for example, is to try a different route.
Hiking can be exhausting outside a video game, but A Short Hike proves that cozy and exploration are a relaxing and enjoyable duo.
9Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
Explore and save adorable animals
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
Alba: A Wildlife Adventureis a cozy game about saving animals and preserving the environment. Players take on the role of Alba, who visits the island andfinds that it needs some help.
The animals are swimming around in litter, and the island, as a whole, could use a makeover.
Players will need to travel around the island looking for animals, documenting them, and then cleaning their habitats to ensure they’re happy and healthy. Alba: A Wildlife Adventure’s music alone provides relaxing vibes, with its roots in Spanish and island music.
The best part, though, is that when I was exploring the island,I really felt like I had a purpose to do so:I was saving animals and having a genuinely positive effect on the environment as I went. This is a rarity in video games.
8Eastshade
Travel painting never looked so beautiful
While Alba has players running around an island to save animals, Eastshade is all about traveling and painting. It’s a pretty unique game that encourages players to take it easy and just enjoythe incredible vistas it provides.It’s no walking simulator, though.
10 Best Walking Simulators, Ranked
These games are very different from one another, but they share a love for worldbuilding and storytelling that makes them unique.
Eastshade has quests, challenges, and even more cities to find and explore. There’s painting, certainly, but you’ll also be collecting items and performing other tasks for NPCs that you discover.
All of these elements aside, exploring in Eastshade is rewarding because it truly has some of the most beautiful locations. I literally never knew what breathtaking scene I was going to stumble onto next,and most of the fun rests in the anticipation of discovery.
There’s no question that when it comes to rewarding exploration, Eastshade is basically built for it.The game is a feast for the eyes.
7Cozy Grove
Help ghosts and return color to the world
Cozy Grove
Cozy games can sometimes be a bit creepy, too. Cozy Grove straddles the two, with players entering a colorless world and encountering ghosts and spirits in the forest.
I discovered that by helping some of the ghosts, I was actually returning color to the world, and it was awesome seeing my exploration and effort visually changing the world around me. The cool thing about Cozy Grove isthat the map changes each time the player enters the forest.
Exploration is never quite the same in Cozy Grove, and with tons of spirits to find and help, it’s easy to never get bored. Since players must keep finding resources and special items to help the ghosts,each plunge into the woods always has a purpose and never turns out the same.
6Spiritfarer
Find special gifts for everlasting friends
Spiritfarer
Spiritfareris all about spirits that players have to help too, albeit a bit differently. In this title, players must take on the role of a Spiritfarer who has to help the departed cross over into the next life.
It’s a cozy management game that requires players to get to know those who have passed on and find the best gifts for them to ease their crossing over.
Exploration involves the player’s boat, which they can modify to suit themselves and their guests better. Players must then choose where to sail,discover new resources and crafting recipes, and ultimately send their new friend to a better life.
Exploration here is impactful since it’s all about finding gifts for the player’s friends before they say farewell forever.I found this particular game to be more of an inward exploration of the soul than simply choosing where to go next with my boat.
Deliver mail and reconnect
Thanks toLake, delivering mail has never been cozier. Players take on the role of Meredith Weiss, who returns to her hometown to take over her dad’s mail route for a few weeks.
This cozy game is all about driving around a picturesque lake town, delivering mail,and meeting the quirky residents. I literally could have spent hours just delivering mail and living my best life.
In fact, it’s the quirky residents that make exploration so rewarding in Lake. Players never know who will be there to accept their mail or how they’ll interact with Meredith.
No two routes are ever the same, so each time players set out to deliver mail, they’ll experience this curious world anew.
4Season: A Letter To The Future
Cycle and record everything before it’s lost forever
Season: A Letter to the Future
Season: A Letter To The Futurereally puts exploration at the player’s fingertips. Players will take a bike ride through a world to record everything they deem worthy of remembering.
The game asks a vital question: If the world is going to end, how should it be remembered?Players get to answer that question. For me, I decided everyone should rememberthe power of ASMR, so I recorded everything from bubbling streams to wind chimes.
While riding along, players can hop off to take photos, record videos, and even record sounds. Along the way, there arefascinating NPCs to discoverwho share intimate stories of their lives.
Season: A letter to the future is all about the journeyand doesn’t really care about the destination.
10 Best Video Game Vehicles, Ranked
Vehicles play a large role in video game history. This list highlights the greatest of them all.
Exploring becomes almost a scavenger hunt, with players needing to find the parts of the world they deem worthy of remembering.Along the way, players might just start to look at the real world a bit differently, too.
Discover new recipes in hidden areas
Fae Farm is a classic cozy game that involves farming, helping out NPCs, and saving the town from disaster. At first, the world of Fae Farm starts off small. However, players will quickly discoverthere’s more to the world than meets the eye.
Scattered throughout the map are crafting recipes for players to find. Sometimes it involves a bit of creative jumping and falling; other times, a really keen eye is needed.
I soon learned double-jumping (or jumping and twirling in Fae Farm’s case) was the only way to travel, since it ensured I was able to see on top of roofs and cliffs for those hidden recipes.
The universe keeps opening up, too. Whether through quest progression or DLCs, Fae Farm hasnew worlds for players to explore, packed with more of those secret recipes.
Each discovery feels rewarding,especially since most recipes aren’t unlockable anywhere else. Whether players head to the sky kingdom or enter through a frog’s mouth, paying attention to every nook and cranny truly matters.
2Coral Island
Lots to find on land and beneath the waves
Coral Island
If players are looking for a new take on Stardew Valley, they only need to pick up Coral Island. The cozy farming game offers a ton of new activities, like collecting bugs and filling up a museum with artifacts.
Since there’s so much to collect,exploring the island matters. Behind every corner could be that last bug players need to complete a set.
Exploration doesn’t just happen on land, either.Players will also discover there’s a whole map below the waves.
Eventually, players will meet the Mer people and discover new quests, crafting items, and crafting resources. It’s a pretty large map, too, and being a bit of a clean freak, my progress in exploring this area was slow since I wanted to clean up all the trash on the sea bed.
Coral Island marries a large world with rewarding exploration, meaning you’ll never begrudge a journey off the beaten path.
1Stardew Valley
The one that started it all
Stardew Valley
No cozy game list is ever complete withoutStardew Valley. While there have certainly been cozy games before Stardew, it basically put them on the map.For good reason, too.
Stardew Valley proved that players can basically have it all. They can farm, mine, fight monsters, and have rewarding exploration.
Exploration typically involves finding new undiscovered areas that players may not have noticed before. Then there’s the fact that there’s a whole tropical island to explore, a desert map, and dozens of mine levels to get through, too.
I distinctly remember clicking on all the bushes after discovering a shadow guy lurking in one of them, so I have never trusted a bush since! Add in the fact that there aretons of Stardew modsthat only further add to exploration,and Stardew Valley really becomes the gift that just keeps giving.
Top 10 Cozy Games With Satisfying Progression
An in-depth list of The Top 10 Coziest Games With Satisfying Progression.
