Winter Burrow Is A Beautiful Cosy Game, But It Lacks Depth

Winter Burrow is billed as a cozy survival game offering the holy trinity of survival, crafting, and farming. While it’s true Winter Burrow offers all of those mechanics, and the game looks beautiful, it didn’t really meet my expectations considering it’s enjoyed mostly positive reviews.

For me, the gameplay was too linear with too much running back and forth. The crafting could largely be ignored, and the farming could absolutely be ignored.

The lack of an in-game map meant the first few hours were littered with wrong turns, and once you do get used to the map, the game’s approximate 10-hour playtime comes to an end.

A Beautiful Looking Game

First, Winter Burrow looks stunning. It’s like stepping into the pages of a Peter Rabbit book. The introduction further triggers the feeling, with the story progressing as though being read from a children’s book.

However, the tale is more harrowing than you might imagine, especially as you progress through the opening chapters.

No Direction

Once the intro is out of the way and more of the winter world opens up to you, one of the game’s glaring problems quickly becomes apparent. There is no map. There are red leaves on the floor, which provide some semblance of direction, but the fact that most of the background is snow meant I found it really difficult to find my way around.

It’s worth noting that Pine Creek Games has announced that an in-game map is coming, so navigation will improve.

Lacking Depth

Beyond the map, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the game. It just lacks depth.

There’s crafting, but other than a few essential tools, there’s no need or real benefit to craft anything else.

Those tools you craft are required to unlock certain areas, so there’s the slightest hint of a metroidvania mechanic, but not enough to be particularly interesting.

There’s farming, too, but there’s an overabundance of nuts, mushrooms, and fruit all over the map, and the farming itself is severely restricted, so you probably won’t bother with that, either.

You can also upgrade your burrow, unlocking the upper floor, but once you’ve unlocked the necessary crafting stations, that’s all a bit pointless.

There’s some combat. You can fight the insects, but it’s easier not to bother – fighting isn’t difficult, you just walk backwards and whack while you go, but it’s largely pointless.

And, once you take all of that stuff out of it, the story takes less than ten hours to complete, with most of that time taken up with wrong turns and endlessly running back and forth. Over and over again.

Conclusion

When you first start playing, Winter Burrow feels like it might pose a challenge thanks to the cold weather. But don’t expect The Long Dark. The game definitely falls under the category of cosy, rather than a survival or crafting game.

It looks beautiful, and, for the most part, the 10-hour story was OK. It’s certainly worth a look if you’re into cosy games or if you are a Game Pass member.

The introduction of a basic map will improve things, but what the game really lacks is depth, and I don’t see that coming in any future upgrades.