RPS Asks: what are you favourite games for the winter malaise?
I am a Winter baby. My birthday is very close to Christmas, and so you’d think this might make me immune to the serotonin-sapping effects of the greyest season in a “I was born of the cold. Moulded by it” kind of way. No such luck, I’m afraid. So, since there’s only so many Vitamin D supplements and delightfully festive lunchtime Gin and Tonics one can consume, I figured I’d ask: what are your favourite comfort games for the bleaker months? The special places you can always rely on for an escape when the weather outside is frightful, and the Cosy Fireplace Ambience 4K (10 hours) keeps getting interrupted by adverts for crypto scammers and War Thunder.
As Graham recently touched upon in his brilliant Naiad review, relaxing games mean different things to different people, and it’s often those with more demanding rules and consequences that feel realer, more engaging, more emancipatory. Some of my favourite winter gaming memories in recent years were stocking up on Shin Ramyun for a glorious fortnight spent popping heads in Cyberpunk 2077, or spending weeks in an unwashed Oodie exploring Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. A happy place in which you brain goons with bicycles is still a happy place. The happiest place, even.
But I also love reading about all how games like Stardew Valley have meant so much to so many people, even if it's never quite caught me the same way. That’s more towards the self-consciously ‘cosy’ end of the spectrum, but I think something that maybe gets underrated when we talk about games and mental health is what how powerful it can be to have access to a clearly-defined set of tasks that are manageable but still rewarding - something that offers structure and accomplishment when doing anything realer feels too overwhelming to contemplate.
There are also just the games I think we all have, the ones we know we can return to pretty much whenever we need them for a joyous escape. Games that feel wintery and warm. For me, that’s 90’s PlayStation JRPGs:
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