Let’s dive into an article that made me ‘grr’, but first let’s start with a bit of backstory.
On my Steam curator, I wrote: “If you like mice and cozy games, why not BE a mouse in a cozy game?”
Positive reviews call the game “cozy” and “easy.” Negative reviews (usually better-written and more detailed) basically praise the game for those same things while pointing out the lack of survival or friction. They note there’s not much depth; it’s very much an explore, resource gather, and ‘decorate your base’ game.
User ‘Aricadian‘ – Winter Burrow Steam Negative Review
These reviews aren’t actually disagreeing about quality, they’re disagreeing about what kind of game this is supposed to be.
So why the survival tag? I assume they did some “word of mouth math” and figured it was better to aim at the magic of the survival tag versus using a more accurate description, like “Cozy Crafting Adventure” or “Homemaking Exploration Game.”
Article time!
An article by Game Industry News (GiN) says that Winter Burrow “…uses light survival mechanics to create gentle tension without ever truly threatening players.” If nothing ever threatens you, what the fuck are you surviving? (Fighting the little bugs shown in the trailer/images proves nothing, even gentle Stardew Valley has cave mobs.)
Survival requires stakes. It requires the possibility of failure, of loss, of things going wrong in ways that matter. The comfort you feel in a survival game is earned and it exists in contrast to the danger you’ve navigated. I’ve felt cozy and at peace in The Long Dark while sheltered in a fishing hut, uphill from wolves during a small snowstorm. (I’m weird.) That coziness meant something because I earned it. Because the wolves were real, the cold was real, the threat was real.
Winter Burrow offers designed comfort that doesn’t require you to survive anything to experience it. A very predictable video-game-logic boogeyman with an overabundance of easy solutions. (MMOs and RPGs where you need the magic fire potion to walk through fire say hello.) Watching some of the gameplay on YouTube, I can’t deny that it’s a cute game but the way it attempts to wear the trappings of survival (by boiling them down to meter humping) makes me cringe? In good survival games, preparation doesn’t make you safe, it just gives you a fighting chance. You plan because you don’t trust the world to behave. When systems can still cascade and surprise you (or fuck you over), survival friction exists. Otherwise you’re just managing meters.
Survival fans feel misled when they buy a game expecting stakes and find none. Cozy game fans might avoid titles that could be perfect for them because they’re worried about stress or difficulty. Words mean things. Genre labels exist to help people find experiences they want. Being cozy is okay! Being an exploration game is okay! You don’t need to borrow the survival tag for legitimacy.
Own what your game actually is.
