During this year’s not-E3, known as Summer Game Fest over the weekend, we got a full hour of wholesome and cozy games, all shown off rapid-fire. While some developers, publishers, and PR people use “cozy” as a buzzword, you can actually be assured that everything shown during the Wholesome Direct 2024 is actually cozy, comfy, and certified wholesome.
You can watch the entire Wholesome Direct presentation on the Summer Game Fest YouTube right now, wedged between the Future of Play, Latin American Games, and Women-Led Games presentations (all of which are amazing as well). You can also watch it directly on the Wholesome Games’ YouTube channel. Or, you know, it’s also embedded below.
The big ole list of games shown during the Wholesome Direct
We have a lot of ground to cover, as there were a ton of games shown off during the Wholesome Direct that premiered on Saturday, June 8th during Summer Game Fest 2024:
- After Love EP *
- Albatroz *
- Boreas
- Broken Lens *
- Building Relationships *
- Caravan Sand Witch *
- Catto’s Post Office
- Crab God *
- Critter Cafe
- Curiosmos
- Dawnfolk *
- Discounty
- Dungeons of Hinterberg *
- Dragon Shelter
- EbiTapes *
- Été
- Fantastic Haven
- Freeride *
- Fruitbus *
- Garden of the Sea
- Goodlands
- Great God Grove
- Hello Again
- Hermit and Pig
- Hirocato: The Delivery Hero *
- Ila: A Frosty Glide *
- Into The Emberlands *
- Kamaeru: A Frog Refuse (Already out!)
- Katsl
- Kitsune Tails *
- Kulebra: Souls of Limbo *
- Letter Bunny
- Littlelands
- Lost and Found Co *
- Magical Bakery
- Map Map – A Game About Maps
- Minami Lane (Already out!)
- Monterona *
- Moonstone Island (Already out!)
- Music Power Up
- Mythmatch *
- Nom Nom:: Cozy Forest Cafe
- Omochapon
- On Your Tail *
- Petit Island
- Pine: A Story of Loss *
- Playdate (It’s been out and has new restocks!)
- POOOOL (Already out!)
- Pretty Coo (Already out and “Name your own price” on itch.io)
- Pup Champs *
- Ringo’s Roundup *
- Rolling Hills (Already out!)
- Rooster
- Sally *
- Screenbound
- OPUS: Prism Peak
- Sopa
- Space Sprouts
- Spilled *
- Squeakross: Home Squeak Home
- The August Before *
- The Palace on the Hill (Already out!)
- The Star Named EOS *
- Tidy Cauldron *
- Times and Galaxy *
- Tiny Book Shop *
- Tiny Lands 2
- Tiny Tires
- Tracks of Thought (Already out!)
- Travellers Rest (Already out, in Early Access)
- Tukoni: Forest Keepers
- Umami Grove
- Undusted: Letters from the Past *
- Usagi Shima (Already out!)
- Wax Heads *
- While Waiting *
I made sure to mark any that have demos currently available for download on Steam with an asterisk (*) or if they’re already available. I also linked directly to their Steam page or website for your convenience.
I don’t believe everything on the official list on the Wholesome Games website made it into the Wholesome Direct. But, this list of 75 (seventy-five!) games comes directly from the Wholesome Games official website. So, if all else fails, we’re always happy to include more cozy and wholesome games from awesome indie developers.
Since it’d be near impossible to write about such a giant list of games, I’ve picked out a handful of them that caught our attention from the list of Wholesome Direct titles to talk about below.
Été
Été, the French word for Summer, has you take on the role of a painter, exploring Montreal and bringing some color to the city. Create art and sell the paintings to locals. During the story, travel around a fully 3D world and literally fill the space with color.
Get commissions, fill your apartment with furniture, and upgrade your capabilities as an artist in Été. There isn’t a demo available, but you can grab it for Steam PC on July 23rd.
Garden of the Sea
We’re suckers for gardening games here at Comfy Cozy Games and Garden of the Sea is absolutely adorable! In Garden of the Sea, you wake up on a magical island where you need to build up your home and farm. While that may sound suspiciously like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, this game is entirely in first-person.
But, “wait,” you may ask, “isn’t Garden of the Sea an older game that’s been out on VR since 2019?” You’d be correct! This game is a non-VR version coming to Steam PC and Nintendo Switch later in 2024 (officially, Q4). So, no need to bust out a Meta Quest to play it!
Freeride
Freeride is a self-proclaimed “oddball RPG” that has you use a physics-based telekinesis to do literally anything you want in the game. Make friends and explore beautiful landscapes, while secretly taking a personality test that the game is tallying up for you behind the scenes.
You can grab the demo for Freeride on the Nintendo Switch eShop in Europe (with a North American demo coming soon). However, the demo, titled FREERIDE: The Personality Test Demo, is available for anyone over on Steam. While no official release date is available, you can expect it early 2025 in Q1.
Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato
Sopa brings along inspirations ranging from Pixar’s Coco to Studio Ghibli films. Formally named Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato, Sopa has you take the role of a boy, Miho, looking to hunt for ingredients for your grandmother’s soup, starting with (as you guessed) a stolen potato from the panty.
Venture into the depths of South America as you follow the story in this narrative adventure. While no official release date is announced, you can find it on Steam PC, Xbox, and Game Pass starting sometime in August.
Into the Emberlands
We actually wrote about Into the Emberlands last month, where Ashley gushed over how adorable it looks. As she noted then, this game/project used to have a different name, Wanderful. Under either name, the game looks to be shaping up to be a really great adventure!
While Into the Emberlands isn’t getting a full launch for possibly quite a while, you can grab the demo on Steam right now. Then, starting June 19th, 2024, you can get the early access version as well!
Curiosmos
Curiosmos reminds me of Katamari Damacy mixed with the various “merge” games on the market, but with adorable faces on every celestial body. It’s entirely sandbox and you’re trying to build a solar system, complete with planets, moons, gravity, and atmospheres. If you can get conditions right, you can even make life!
No demo is available. However, you’ll be about to pick this up early next year sometime on PC and Mac via Steam, as well as Nintendo Switch. They’re even going mobile on both iOS and Android.
Squeakross: Home Squeak Home
Do you like Picross? Do you like mice? You need to grab Squeakross then. In this cozy game, you play nonograms and do house decorating for a mouse from what you create in the puzzles. You can customize your gameplay to be as easy or as hard as you want and even change the look of your rodent.
Honestly, Ashley is a big fan of Picross and I still find her playing Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons, long after she’s reviewed it (and gave it a very favorable score). I can see her getting lost in this one as well when it comes out.
While no demo is yet available, the planned release is for some time in 2025.
Building Relationships
In Building Relationships, you play as a house, rolling (literally) around on an adventure, fishing for cars, and potentially finding romance with other building structures. Seriously, you’re able to date a windmill, 10/10, Game of the Year, no notes. Also, yes, there’s a demo available.
Including some very interesting oddballs, there are just so many good-looking cozy games on the list from the Wholesome Direct. We can’t wait to check all of them out! This is going to be a great year for cozy indie games, and so is 2025 from the look of it.
As I mentioned above, many of the games from the Wholesome Direct have demos available on Steam to try out right now! Make sure to wishlist anything that catches your attention as that actually helps the developers and will remind you that they’re coming out. Honestly, a lot of them don’t even have release dates as of yet, such as the adorable claymation-esque Littlelands.
Let us know what you’re most excited about from the Wholesome Direct down in the comments.
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