Graveyard Keeper 2 is a cozy game you can really dig into

I awake alone, in an empty dungeon, beneath a city that’s been taken over by the undead. It’s a grim set of circumstances, but a friendly talking skull helps me get free and find a band of hardy survivors. I’m tasked with a large, overgrown plot of land. When villagers inevitably die, it’s my job to bury their corpses. I also need to grow crops to help feed the needy, rebuild the old church, help a few friends out, summon a fairy, and take back the nearby town from zombies. There’s a lot to do in Graveyard Keeper 2 beyond just keeping the graveyard, but none of it is stressful — it’s a very comfortable experience that can easily gobble up hours of my time.

Graveyard Keeper 2 is one of those cozy games that plays with the conventions of the genre by making things a little bit evil and scary. Yes, I start each morning by leaving my comfy little home and harvesting my crops. I fish, scavenge, and bake delicious meals that restore my energy when I gobble them down. I also bring corpses into the morgue to autopsy, and I harvest their body parts for alchemy and crafting. I learn how to resurrect the dead for my own purposes, arming them as soldiers or using them to automate crafting around my farm.

While things are a little morbid, the game is still fairly traditionally cozy. There’s a dry sense of humor. The Keeper gets heckled by silly, bickering guards, deals with the red tape of a village election, and finds a saucy romance novel on the sly for a stern military figure.