We gotta tackle the big cozy question in gaming

I’m calling it now: the label of “cozy games” has gotten way too broad. I’ve seen some of the games you’re all declaring cozy. At this point, I think you could make a game all about scraping the viscera off a skull, and someone would give a big happy sigh, download the game, and declare that this is the coziest game they’ve ever played. I’m calling a moratorium for cozy games because you’re all out of control.

“Cozy” has always been kind of a nebulous genre; it covers your classic farming sim, home decor games, really, anything with good vibes. Stardew Valley is cozy, Strange Horticulture is cozy, House Flipper is cozy, PowerWash Simulator is cozy, Is This Seat Taken? is cozy. Then there are cozy games with a horror twist, like the weird puzzle game Grunn, or upcoming murder mystery Grave Seasons.

Perhaps that’s the problem — the genre is too broad, too undefinable, because I’m seeing the picks some of you are offering up as your favorite cozy game and they’re absolutely bananas. I’m sorry, Hardspace Shipbreaker is your cozy game? The game where you can get pulled into a traction field and get atomized? The game about how corporations are able to leverage crushing debt to force workers into unsustainable meatgrinders? Darkest Dungeon is your cozy game? You might as well say that you like to doze off after playing a few soothing hours of Silent Hill 2.

This raises the question: does a cozy game need to be, in and of itself, focused on comfort and good vibes? Are pastel colors or cute cows mandatory? Or is it more of an out-of-game status? If you’re able to wrap yourself up in a big cozy blanket and sip cocoa, is that enough to make a game cozy? When I was growing up in the ‘90s, I remember going to Toys “R” Us with my mom and brothers, and looking at the division between the standard array of boy toys, and then the explosion of pink that marked the beginning of girl toy territory. 

In some ways, I think cozy serves as a similar marketing and packaging shorthand. On the other hand, the term has clearly expanded far beyond that, to be so comfortably applied to such a wide array of games.

There are games that have hideous subject matter, skeletons and serial killers, but I’ve mastered the mechanics so thoroughly that I enter a flow state. I can get attacked by a raiding band of cannibals in RimWorld, and I smile placidly, because I know that those raiders are full of organs that I can extract for big money. Is that a cozy experience?

I’ve seen narrative games, visual novels, puzzle games, simulators, and anything that isn’t an action or shooter game collated into the same lists and roundups. In a press briefing for the upcoming Starfield DLC, creative producer Tim Lamb suggested that the new changes in the free update reinforced a misunderstood theme of the game: that it’s a cozy sci-fi sandbox.

I’ll admit, there’s a certain elegance to it — no one wants to keep coming up with niche descriptors like the inscrutable terms “Metroidvania” or “MOBA”, right? But surely there comes a point where a certain level of inquiry is necessary. We’re reaching peak cozy saturation. At this rate, by 2032, 85% of all games will be marked as cozy on Steam. We gotta come up with some other ways to discuss cathartic and comfortable game design, or we’ll all be crushed beneath the flood of games that all kind of, sort of fit under the cozy label.