The Danes call it Hygge. In Scottish Gaelic it’s còsagach. In English, we know it as cocooning.
That desire to retreat inside to the comfort and safety of your home, put your phone on silent, and work on fostering an atmosphere of presence and convivial wellbeing might sound odd now in summer 2026, but I can promise you it was all the rage back in 2020.
It was also all the rage back in the dark pre-Christmas of November 2025 when Pine Creek Games first released Winter Burrow, a well-received survival and crafting game that was the very essence of comfort, togetherness, and cosiness, however you might want to phrase it. The game is available on XBOX again this week, on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, starting today.
With Winter Burrow Pine Creek takes the survival and crafting genre, for so long associated with the struggle, resource rationing, and life or death decisions in such games as Frostpunk 2, Pacific Drive, and Sons of the Forest to name but a tiny handful of recent entires, and turns it on its head. What if the protagonist was an adorable little mouse returning from the big city to the peace and solitude of the forest’s family burrow? What if instead of the loving embrace of his Aunt Betulina, the little mouse discovers an abandoned hearth and a mystery instead? With a snowstorm raging outside, and no fuel in the burrow, our brave little adventurer must strike out and find some twigs to build a fire, something to eat, and somewhere to sleep.
After that, your task is straightforward. Settle in. Explore the forest. Find resources and food. Meet the locals, and find your Aunt.
The first thing you’ll probably notice about Winter Burrow is its thoughtful art style — a hand-drawn, 2D illustrated storybook look that heavily blends cozy nostalgia with a touch of melancholy.
The developers themselves have noted that the visual setting is deeply inspired by classic nature tales like The Wind in the Willows, the Mouse Guard comics, and the atmospheric animated series Over the Garden Wall. Everything looks delicately whimsical and crafted with care and attention.
The second thing you might notice is your inability to withstand the cold for long will keep you tied to the burrow’s closest environs. But that’s ok. There’s still plenty to discover and collect. As you progress, you can gather resources, craft both furniture and items, unlock and create new tools, knit warm sweaters and other cold-resistant clothing, learn to cook pies and other cosy foodstuffs, and even expand your living space. (I had an entire cellar devoted to growing different species of mushrooms that allowed me to make dinner without ever having to brave the elements.)
A workbench allows you to craft new tools from items you collect on your travels, and a stove allows you to prepare home-cooked meals that will keep you warm in the coldest of conditions. The game’s progression system is fairly linear and straightforward too. An old armchair in front of the fire looks like a great spot to do some knitting. But it’s in need of repair. In order to fix it up you’re going to need some wood, which you can only cut if you have an axe. Of course, you can craft a rudimentary stone axe from stones and smaller pieces of wood scattered throughout the snowy landscape outside. Better hop to it.
Resources are beautifully natural and include things like wood from a series of different tree types, twigs and saplings, tufts of fox fur left behind on brambles, grass fibers that can be spun into yarn, mushrooms, pebbles, rocks, ore, and myriad other items that can be used, not only to bring your old family burrow back to life, but to improve upon it with new furniture, additional burrow levels, and places to store your growing collection of things.
Speaking of, furniture upgrades can admittedly feel a little redundant after you have played the game for several hours and taken care of all the essentials. For example, you can replace a rough-hewn end table with a rough-hewn granite end table, but it makes no impact on your house, your comfort, or your ability to tackle your endless lists of tasks outside.
Crafting a complete new set (or multiple sets) of furniture carries aesthetic value only in Winter Burrow, and I can’t help feeling like there’s a lost opportunity for more interesting craftables — like a larger store for collected food items, or a wardrobe for clothing, or upgrades that improve quality, taste, and durability of the things stored in them.
As it stands, regardless of whether our murine hero is sleeping on a twig bed, a fiber bed, or an oak bed, the end result is the same.
Be careful to watch your energy, hunger, and cold meters when you’re out and about. Linger too long in the cold, or stray too far from your burrow when the temperature drops and you’ll begin to see the screen frosting up with tendrils of ice that eventually fill up the screen entirely. Fail to make it back indoors or to the safety of a neighbor’s home before this happens, and you’ll die.
Note: The game doesn’t feature a compass, or a map, or even any quest markers, and it’s easy to become turned about in the snowy landscape at times.
The cold isn’t the only thing that can kill you in Winter Burrow. There are a number of forest insects on the prowl too. Initially they come in the form of harmless water beetles, which won’t attack you unless you attack them first. (They make a delicious beetle pie, if you are that way inclined, so you may actually… y’know … want to.) But soon enough, you’ll encounter fast moving ants, and tough spiders.
Oddly, the game has a feature that allows the player to “turn off” spider encounters, replacing them with ants instead. There’s also a deadly owl that puts in an appearance at critical moments.
After some time you’ll have the right warm woollens, restorative hot drinks and meals, and perhaps even a handy set of snow shoes to really begin a thorough exploration of the forest. Here you’ll meet with a collection of interesting locals, all of whom will have a quest or three to offer in return for helpful rewards.
There’s Betulina, your resilient mouse aunt who was supposed to be looking after your childhood home but got swept away by an owl at the very start of the game, kicking off your journey to rescue her. Then there’s Gnawtusk, an aging, forgetful squirrel who suffered a head injury that caused them to be kicked out of their “Huddle.”
Bufo, meanwhile, is a grumpy, stubborn toad who lives in a stone house, is a bit obsessed with stone as a building material, and has become estranged from their child after a massive argument. Pollywog is Bufo’s child. This younger frog left home after the fight with Bufo to live their own life — in a wooden house! The shame!!
Then there’s Moss, a timid hedgehog who is deeply anxious and won’t make a move without the approval of their partner, Pinesap.
Finally there’s Willow, a gentle mole who helps guide you and shares stories about the changing, freezing nature of the forest around you.
Each character has their own story, and a surprisingly human struggle going on beneath the surface. Depression, anxiety, abusive relationships, family bonds, loss, and death all make gentle but unambiguous appearances over the course of the game’s 10 or so hours, and you may find yourself coming to the realization that Winter Burrow is as much about navigating life’s internal storms, as it is about surviving the external ones.
I admit to being a sucker for sandbox games with strong survival, crafting, and management elements. I won’t tell you how many hours I’ve sunk into The Sims over the years but you should know it’s a lot. A lot a lot. It’s probably also the reason 11 Bit Studio’s The Alters was TV Pulse Magazine’s top choice as Game of the Year in 2025. There’s a super soothing flow-state to be found in a series of satisfying in-game tasks, character upgrades, and resource gathering that gently relaxes the nervous system as you play. (Ok, maybe not so much in The Alters.)
Those who know better will probably tell you that the psychological appeal of games like The Sims, Winter Burrow, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing is deeply rooted in how human brains process stress, reward, and control. But maybe it’s really just about the simple satisfaction of building a safer, better world from the comfort of your own armchair?
Our Score: 7/10. Winter Burrow transforms a simple game of mouse-sized survival into a masterclass in hygge. It’s a gentle, poignant reminder that sometimes the best way to weather life’s external storms is to foster warmth and presence within our own corners of the world.
Original Release Date: November 12, 2025
Genre: Cosy woodland survival
Developer: Pine Creek Games
Publisher: Noodlecake
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