When you think of cozy games, you probably think of cutesy farming sims like Stardew Valley and neighborvanias like Animal Crossing. These casual experiences offer easy to pick up laid back gameplay loops, but they can sometimes feel a bit too candy and rainbows.
Thankfully, there’s a whole sub-genre of games that embrace darker subject matters, from running a cult to enacting vengeance on those who have wronged you.
10
Cult of the Lamb
Cult of the Lamb might just be the perfect example of a cozy game with a darker undertone. This is a roguelike that splits your time between questing and management, where you must defeat enemies and find animals to indoctrinate into your ever-growing cult. In between outings, you’ll spend time in your village, constructing a cult headquarters and assigning followers tasks in order to further your cause.
The game is chock-full of satanic imagery, ritual sacrifice, and management quests that see you appeasing your followers lest they turn on you. Everyday tasks include cleaning up, cooking, and handing out punishments to those who won’t bend to your will. The cutesy aesthetics and simple gameplay loop help the game get under your skin, plus there’s a story tying it all together.
A fully paid expansion titled Woolhaven arrives in early 2026.
Cult of the Lamb
- Released
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August 11, 2022
- ESRB
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Rated T for Teen for Blood, Violence.
- Developer(s)
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Massive Monster
- Publisher(s)
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Devolver Digital
9
Graveyard Keeper
As the name implies, in Graveyard Keeper you’re tasked with managing a graveyard after inheriting some land near a medieval town. The game takes heavy inspiration from Stardew Valley, both in terms of visual style and gameplay interactions. You’ll need to clear your plot, dig graves, interact with the town’s various NPCs, collect resources, craft items, go on quests, and even fish to grow your macabre empire.
While the subject matter may already seem dark, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. The Breaking Dead DLC pack adds a resurrection table, which you can use to summon zombies to do your bidding, while later DLC packs touch on vampire massacres and absolving the dead of their sins. The game has been out since 2018, and it’s often discounted to a bargain price—I’d recommend the Undead Edition, which includes most of the additional content.
Graveyard Keeper developer Lazy Bear Games has since released Bloomtown: A Different Story, another cozy yet dark game you might want to check out if you like a side of turn-based combat and demon taming mechanics in your sandbox adventures.
Graveyard Keeper
- Released
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August 15, 2018
- ESRB
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E For Everyone: Comic Mischief, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Alcohol
- Publisher(s)
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tinyBuild
8
Dredge
Dredge is a unique role-playing game in which you take control of a small fishing vessel and quickly settle into a simple, cozy gameplay loop: fish, sell, upgrade, repeat. The game uses a day-night cycle, which is important to pay attention to, since getting caught out at night can subject you to some of the game’s weirder phenomena. You’ll start hallucinating, taking on damage, and fall prey to some terrifying sea monsters if you don’t get home in time.
The game drip-feeds you upgrades, fish species, and new areas to explore while employing simple yet satisfying mini-games. At times, you’ll need to push your sanity meter to the edge in order to catch some of the rarer fish in order to progress, which can result in a mad dash back to port in order to offload your winnings and survive another night.
The game has received countless awards, has crossover-DLC with Dave the Diver, and there’s even a live-action film supposedly in the works.
Dredge
- Released
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March 31, 2023
- ESRB
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E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco
- Developer(s)
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Black Salt Games
- Publisher(s)
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Team17
7
Dystopika
Dystopika is a chill city-building game with no real aims or goals. The twist is that these are no ordinary cities; they’re dystopian cyberpunk megalopolises. Heavily inspired by the likes of Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, the game gives you free rein to place buildings, billboards, signs, and infrastructure wherever you like as you build out your dream futuristic hellscape.
The more you build, the more pieces you’ll unlock, and the more you’ll be able to add to your cities. The game lets you cycle through time of day (though it’s always gloomy), weather (like snow and dust storms), and decide how dense the airborne traffic should be. When you’re happy with the results, you can enter photo mode and capture the cold elegance of your hostile creation, with monthly challenges run by the developer.
Dystopika is still under active development, and features an incredible soundtrack that was added in version 1.5.
Dystopika
- Released
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June 21, 2024
- Developer(s)
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Voids Within
- Publisher(s)
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Voids Within
- Engine
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Unity Engine
- Number of Players
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1
6
Tropico 6
The Tropico series might push the boundaries of what “cozy” means, but the games still feel like a holiday in the sun. Like its predecessors, Tropico 6 is part city-builder, part political simulation, and part resource management game in which you assume the role of El Presidente and take on the task of developing a Caribbean banana republic.
The game takes place on a sun-drenched island, with a soundtrack that makes you want to sip cocktails on the beach. Despite this, you’re free to live it up as a corrupt and self-serving politician, buddying up to Cold War superpowers, becoming a base of operations for nuclear weapon launches, and eliminating your political adversaries.
The game works surprisingly well on consoles, and a follow-up in the form of Tropico 7 is expected to arrive in 2026.
Tropico 6
- Released
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March 29, 2019
- ESRB
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Teen // Drug Reference, Mild Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Limbic Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
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Kalypso Media
5
Strange Horticulture
Strange Horticulture is part puzzle game and part shop simulator in which you run a store that sells botanical remedies. The action all takes place within your shop, though you must also head out on expeditions to new areas in search of new plants, which is all handled through a map interface. There’s a fair degree of freedom in the game, right down to how you organize and label the plants that you have collected.
Once you know what a plant is and what it does, you can set about using it to serve customers with products that can help or hinder them. Since many of your plants have deadly or unwelcome side effects, how you decide to proceed can greatly impact the outcome. There’s a real kick in knowing you just gave someone a poisonous extract and seeing how it all plays out through interactions with those who visit your shop.
Strange Horticulture
- Released
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January 21, 2022
- ESRB
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e
- Developer(s)
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Bad Viking
- Publisher(s)
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Iceberg Interactive
4
Wytchwood
Wytchwood is a crafting adventure game where you take on the role of a witch in a dark fairytale world full of mysteries to uncover. The game is heavy on resource collecting and crafting, with nods to famous tales and a cast of colorful characters to discover and interact with. Use spells to solve puzzles and overcome adversaries in the form of beastly monsters that lurk deep in the woods.
Though the gameplay loop is chill, the game has an unmistakably darker tone. You’re given free will to decide what happens to many of the characters you meet, and the whole thing unfolds in a beautiful yet at times unsettling storybook visual style. The game may be simple, but it’s one that doesn’t outstay its welcome, with a run time of around 11 hours (or a weekend’s worth of enthusiastic play).
Wytchwood
- Released
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December 9, 2021
- ESRB
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E10+ For Everyone 10+ due to Alcohol Reference, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Language
- Developer(s)
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Alientrap Games
- Publisher(s)
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Alientrap Games
3
Book of Hours
Book of Hours is an RPG in which you play the role of a librarian, restoring an old library and curating a collection of occult texts. The game features crafting, resource gathering, exploration, and social elements as you interact with the town’s villagers and the various travelers who stop by. There’s a reading mechanic in which “readables” like books, tablets, scrolls, and reels of film can be studied and mastered, producing memories and allowing you to upgrade your skills via lessons.
The game has no combat, and instead you will spend your time restoring the collection, discovering why the library was abandoned in the first place, and helping others with various tasks. There’s also a House of Light DLC that takes place right before the Second World War, with more social interactions and a new cooking mechanic to master.
2
Oxenfree
Oxenfree is a side-scrolling adventure game in which you play as a teenager who visits an island for a party with a group of friends. While there, a mysterious paranormal force is unleashed, prompting the group to figure out what’s happening and how it can be stopped. If you’re a bit bored with cozy sandboxes, Oxenfree is a fun coming-of-age adventure with a narrative structure that you can work your way through instead.
The game emphasizes social interaction and the relationships you have with those around you are shaped by what you say (and a unique mechanic where you can choose to ignore people or simply not interact to allow them to keep speaking). The game has a variety of different endings to discover, and received a sequel in the form of Oxenfree II: Lost Signals with a TV series also in development.
Oxenfree
- Released
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January 15, 2015
- ESRB
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T For Teen due to Violence, Sexual Themes, Drug Reference, Language, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
- Developer(s)
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Night School Studio
- Publisher(s)
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Night School Studio
1
Little Misfortune
Another game that sheds the sandbox formula, Little Misfortune is an interactive story where you guide an inquisitive eight-year-old through an at-times bleak world on an adventure that’s punctuated by bad luck. You take control of the titular character, a cute yet naïve child, with the story shaped by the decisions you make along the way.
This is a kind of choose-your-own-adventure game with plenty of variety in terms of where the game takes you. The cutesy tale is shrouded in darkness, with a wicked sense of humor, and beautiful art. If you like this, maybe give the developer’s previous title Fran Brow a look too.
Little Misfortune
- Released
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September 18, 2019
- ESRB
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e
- Engine
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unity
A few other games that are cozy yet at times have a dark undertone include Spiritfarer which deals with the subject of death (though in a charming way), a life sim called Cozy Grove about camping on a haunted island, and zoomorphic adventure game Night in the Woods.