While we might typically think of “cozy” as being limited to pastel shop simulators, we’ve noticed a few cozy sections of some very big games — and we wanted to make sure they got their flowers, too. These calmer, gentler sections are refreshing amidst all the fights.
- Garreg Mach in Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- Corvo Bianco in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine
- Club Sunshine in Yakuza 0
Garreg Mach in Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a strange game that we’re still playing years after its 2019 release. It’s half epic battle simulator, half tea party organizer. There’s a five-year time skip halfway through the game. There are detailed RPG skill trees not just for your protagonist, but for dozens of students you can recruit and manage. A lot of people are secretly dragons, or something? It all works, though, because of the life you build at Garreg Mach Monastery.
The player-character, Byleth, is recruited as a teacher at a boarding school. Between battles to save local communities or training fights with future warriors in the war-torn country, Byleth spends quite a bit of downtime at Garreg Mach, a Hogwarts-like setting. It’s a detailed cozy world where you can fish, garden, have meals with students, practice singing, dispense advice, give gifts, pet cats, and teach classes.
Building relationships with fellow teachers and students isn’t just key to success, but also genuinely enjoyable. You can encourage students to build relationships with each other, unlocking unique cutscenes for each pairing, which makes the world feel rich and responsive to your actions.
Garreg Mach provides a welcome respite from the horrors of the world.
– Written by Amanda Tien
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Corvo Bianco in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine
After dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of hours traveling the world and saving communities in epic RPG The Witcher 3, players can let protagonist Geralt of Rivia relax for a bit. In the second and final expansion, Blood and Wine in 2016, Geralt is given management of a winery, Corvo Bianco.
There, Geralt meets Barnabas-Basil (who he affectionately comes to call “B.B.”), his new majordomo. B.B. gives Geralt a tour, sharing the history of the property, and introduces Geralt to his new employees. He suggests that Geralt can fix up the vineyard, if he likes. It’s a completely optional series of side quests that requires an investment of thousands of hard-earned coins, but it’s also one of the most emotionally fulfilling.
Despite spending much of his artificially extended life on the road, Geralt finally has a home of his own. I loved building a nice stable for my loyal horse, fixing up the garden, and hanging up a beautiful painting from a woman whose ghostly soul I had finally helped set free. The investment is useful, as well–Geralt’s horse runs faster, he’s able to harvest herbs for potions, and… well, okay, nothing about the decorating is practical but the vibes are better.
As a reward for fixing up Corvo Bianco, Geralt gets to have a glass of wine with B.B., a new friend, and, if all goes well, a surprise visit from someone he loves. Corvo Bianco serves a cozy, beautiful epilogue for the hardest-working witcher out there.
– Written by Amanda Tien
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Club Sunshine in Yakuza 0
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Club Sunshine
A game about a crime syndicate rife with murder may not seem like the birthplace of an amazing cozy experience. Yet if you’ve played Yakuza 0 (2015), or any of the Yakuza series, really, you’ll know they’re not standard games. Managing a hostess club called Club Sunshine is a welcome break from stomping heads in 1980s Osaka, and a wonderfully cozy one.
As Goro Majima, you have to select the hostesses on shift and solve problems for both them and their clients throughout the night. It could have been a grim experience, denigrating to the hostesses. But it really isn’t — the women are not merely two-dimensional caricatures, and through conversations with them, you’ll learn more about them and their lives, as well as bond with them to cultivate a pleasant working environment for all.
Interactions with guests make it clear that Majima is on the same level as the hostesses, and there’s a really nice vibe of equality, helped by the incredible soundtrack of jazz-infused city pop. Instead of being stigmatizing, gross, or otherwise unpleasant, working with the women to become the number one club is a chill, cozy, comforting experience, and one of the greatest aspects of an all-time great video game.
– Written by Joe Chivers
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
Favorite Cozy Sections of Not-Cozy Games?
Tell us in the comments!
Editor’s Note: We previously published these blurbs as part of a list of Best Cozy Games in November 29, 2023. As of September 2026, we are separating this content out to make the content easier for readers to find along with new blurbs.
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Amanda Tien (she/her or they) loves video games where she can pet dogs, solve mysteries, punch bad guys, play as a cool female character, and/or have a good cry. She began writing with The Punished Backlog in 2020 and became an Editor in Fall 2021. Amanda also does a lot of the site's graphic designs and podcast editing. Amanda's work has been published in Mothership, Unwinnable Monthly, Poets.org, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Learn more about her writing, visual art, teaching, graphic design, and marketing consulting at www.amandatien.com.
Joe is a games critic and English literature graduate who knows far too much about video games and critical theory. He once wrote a Derridean reading of the animal masks in Hotline Miami. You can find him on Twitter @jchiverswriter.
