20 Best Cozy Games to Play This Autumn in 2026
Once September hits and the evenings start getting darker, I always end up wanting slightly different games.
I still want something cozy, but I’m much more drawn to little towns, forests, farming sims, shop management and games with a bit of mystery or magic. By October, I’m also much more willing to let things get a little spooky, as long as we’re not talking full horror.
That doesn’t mean every game on this list is filled with pumpkins and orange leaves. Some are here because they genuinely have that autumn look, while others just suit this time of year. A quiet bookshop, a convenience store, a rainy café or a game you can properly settle into for a few evenings can work just as well.
So these are 20 cozy and cozy-adjacent games I think are particularly good to play in autumn, from farming sims and witchy games to emotional stories, management sims and a few darker picks for October.
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Find Your Next Cozy Game
Whether you want a relaxing farming sim, a gentle puzzle game, a cozy adventure, an emotional story or something easy to play on the sofa, my Cozy Games Directory is full of ideas to help you choose what to play next.
And for the days when you’re choosing a game based less on genre and more on how you feel, my Cozy Games for Mental Health collection brings together comfort games for anxiety, burnout, loneliness, sleep, stress and low days.
What Makes a Game Perfect for Autumn?
For me, it’s mostly about atmosphere.
Farming games naturally fit because autumn usually means harvest season, changing colours and getting everything ready before winter. Witchy games are an obvious choice too, especially once October rolls around, but I don’t think an autumn game necessarily needs magic or Halloween decorations.
It can just be something that feels good to play when you’re staying in more. Management games with a satisfying routine work really well, as do slower narrative games where you can actually pay attention to the characters and story.
And when I do want something a little darker, I still tend to prefer mystery, ghosts and slightly unsettling stories over actual horror.
That’s the balance I’ve gone for here.
Tiny Bookshop
Game Image: Tiny Bookshop, Developer Image: Neoludic Games
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Tiny Bookshop feels made for the point in the year when staying inside with a pile of books suddenly sounds much more appealing.
You run a second-hand bookshop from a little trailer, travelling between locations, stocking your shelves and recommending books to the people who stop by. There is some management involved, but it never becomes a frantic shop sim. Most of the enjoyment comes from learning what your customers like, finding new books and slowly making the shop feel like your own.
It’s also a really easy game to settle back into after a long day. There’s always something to do, but very little pressure to do it quickly or perfectly.
The books, slower pace and seaside setting make it one of my favourite games for a quiet autumn evening.
Game Image: Spiritfarer, Developer Image: Thunder Lotus
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox
Spiritfarer doesn’t look especially autumnal, but it suits this time of year for a completely different reason.
You play as Stella, travelling around the world on a boat and helping spirits before eventually saying goodbye to them. Between those bigger story moments, you’re farming, cooking, fishing, collecting resources and steadily building new rooms and facilities on the boat.
It’s one of those games where there is nearly always some small job you could be doing, which makes it very easy to settle into for a few hours.
The story can be emotional, so I wouldn’t describe it as a completely light comfort game, but if colder evenings make you want something slower and more thoughtful, Spiritfarer is still one of the best.
Game Image: Moonlight Peaks, Developer Image: Little Chicken
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch
Moonlight Peaks is probably the most obvious autumn game on this list.
You play as a vampire starting a new life in a supernatural town, growing magical crops by moonlight, brewing potions and getting to know witches, werewolves, mermaids and other residents. It takes a lot of familiar farming-sim ideas and gives them a much more magical spin.
What I liked most when I played it was that the witchy side isn’t just there to make everything look cute. Magic actually affects how you farm and interact with the world, so it feels different enough from the usual farming routine.
It’s still very cozy, but the vampires, moonlight and supernatural setting give it exactly the right amount of Halloween without making it remotely scary.
Night in the Woods
Game Image: Night in the Woods, Developer Image: Infinite Fall
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Amazon* Physical Copies: Nintendo Switch
If I had to pick one game on this list based purely on how autumnal it looks, Night in the Woods would probably win.
Mae drops out of college and moves back to Possum Springs, the small town where she grew up. She expects to pick up where she left off, but her friends have moved on, the town is struggling and something increasingly strange is happening in the background.
There’s a lot of wandering around, talking to people and spending time with Mae’s friends, so it’s much more about the characters and story than traditional gameplay.
The falling leaves, small-town streets and slightly gloomy atmosphere are perfect for autumn, but it’s the messier side of the story that makes it memorable. It deals with friendship, mental health, growing up and that horrible feeling of realising everyone else seems to be moving forward without you.
Strange Horticulture
Game Image: Strange Horticulture, Developer Image: Bad Viking
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Strange Horticulture puts you behind the counter of a small plant shop in the gloomy town of Undermere, and things get weird pretty quickly.
Customers come in looking for particular plants, but rather than simply handing them over, you need to identify the right specimen using clues from your botanical book. As the game progresses, those requests become part of a much bigger mystery involving witches, cults and strange things happening around the town.
Most of the gameplay is quiet and methodical. You’re examining leaves, comparing descriptions and trying to work out what you actually have sitting on the shelf.
It has exactly the right combination of plants, rain, mystery and slightly occult atmosphere for October, while still being more puzzle game than horror game.
Fields of Mistria
Game Image: Fields of Mistria, Developer Image: NPC Studio
Available on: PC
Fields of Mistria is a good choice if you want something you can start in autumn and then disappear into for the next few weeks.
It has all the familiar farming sim bits you’d expect, including crops, animals, fishing, mining, relationships and improving the town, but the colourful pixel art and strong cast of characters give it a lot of personality.
And, obviously, farming games work particularly well once you reach their autumn season. There’s something satisfying about changing crops, seeing the colours shift and getting the farm ready for winter, even if you’re doing it while sitting inside with the heating on.
Now that Fields of Mistria has reached its full 1.0 release, it’s also a much better time to start if you were holding off while it was still in Early Access.
Game Image: Stardew Valley, Developer Image: Concerned Ape
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation, Amazon
Amazon* Physical Copies: Nintendo Switch
I’m not going to pretend Stardew Valley isn’t one of the most obvious choices here.
Autumn is probably my favourite season in Stardew. The farm changes colour, there are different crops to grow and you start thinking about getting everything sorted before winter arrives.
There’s also something about starting a fresh Stardew save once the weather gets colder that just works. You can farm properly if you want, but you can just as easily spend half the day fishing, wandering around town or going to the mines instead.
It’s familiar, easy to come back to and still one of the best games for falling into a little routine of your own.
Coffee Talk
Game Image: Coffee Talk, Developer Image: Toge Productions
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Amazon* Physical Copies: Nintendo Switch, PS4
Coffee Talk is much less obviously autumnal than some of the games here, but it’s exactly the kind of thing I want to play on a rainy evening.
You work behind the counter of a late night coffee shop, making drinks and listening to the people who come in. There isn’t loads of traditional gameplay. You’re mostly following conversations, getting to know the regulars and occasionally trying to work out what drink someone actually wants.
That simplicity is part of why it works.
It’s warm, quiet and easy to play when you don’t particularly want to learn another massive set of systems or spend an hour clearing icons off a map.
If you want something story driven that you can play for a couple of hours before bed, Coffee Talk is an easy autumn pick.
Game Image: Cozy Grove, Developer Image: Spryfox
Available on: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Cozy Grove gives you a haunted island full of ghosts, but in probably the least threatening way possible.
You play as a Spirit Scout helping the ghostly bears who live there. Each day brings new jobs, resources to collect and things to craft, while completing quests gradually brings colour back into different parts of the island.
The game is designed around shorter daily sessions, so it’s not really something you’re expected to play for eight hours straight. That makes it particularly good if you want a cozy game to check into regularly rather than another huge commitment.
Ghosts, woodland, campfires and a slightly muted art style also make it feel very at home in autumn, particularly once October starts.
Game Image: DREDGE, Developer Image: Black Salt Games
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox
DREDGE is firmly in cozy-adjacent territory, but I think autumn is one of the best times to play it.
During the day, it can be surprisingly relaxing. You sail between islands, catch fish, sell what you find and gradually improve your boat. Then it gets dark, your panic starts rising and staying out for one more fishing trip suddenly seems like a very bad idea.
That contrast is what makes it so good.
The fishing and inventory management scratch the same part of my brain as a cozy management game, while the fog, strange creatures and larger mystery give it something much darker underneath.
It’s definitely not completely stress-free, but if you want something creepy for October without committing to an actual horror game, it’s one of my favourites.
Game Image: Cult of the Lamb, Developer Image: Massive Monster
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox
Amazon Physical Copies*: Nintendo Switch, PS5
Cult of the Lamb is another game that technically has no business being called cozy, and yet parts of it absolutely are.
You build and manage a cult filled with adorable animal followers, constructing buildings, cooking meals, decorating the settlement and trying to keep everyone fed and reasonably happy.
Then you leave camp and head into roguelike combat, defeat enemies and occasionally make some fairly questionable decisions involving your followers.
It’s a bizarre combination, but it works.
The management side can be extremely satisfying, and the cute-but-dark art style fits October perfectly. Just don’t go into it expecting something completely relaxing. Your tiny woodland cult has considerably more drama than Animal Crossing.
Potion Permit
Game Image: Potion Permit, Developer Image: MassHive Media
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Potion Permit is a good middle ground if you like the potion-making side of witchy games but don’t necessarily want another game about witches.
You’re a chemist who arrives in Moonbury to treat the people living there. When someone becomes ill, you diagnose what’s wrong, head out to gather the ingredients you need and then bring everything back to your cauldron to prepare the remedy.
Around that, there’s fishing, exploration, relationships and plenty of familiar life sim progression.
It’s the gathering and potion making that earns it a place here for me. Heading into the woods looking for ingredients and then coming home to make something in a cauldron has enough autumn energy even without the supernatural side.
Game Image: Mineko’s Night Market, Developer Image: Meowza Games
Available on:PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Amazon* Physical Copies: Nintendo Switch, PS5
Mineko’s Night Market brings crafting, cats and a weekly market into the mix.
You explore Mt. Fugu collecting materials, use them to make different items and then sell what you’ve created at the Night Market. There are also characters to meet, activities around the island and a bigger mystery involving the mythical Sun Cat.
It has four seasons too, which helps it feel like a game you can properly settle into rather than one fixed little world.
Compared with some of the darker October picks on this list, Mineko’s Night Market is much brighter and sillier. That makes it a nice option if you want the markets, crafting and changing seasons without witches, ghosts or anything remotely unsettling.
Game Image: inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories, Developer Image: Nagai Industries
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
inKONBINI isn’t set in autumn, but it absolutely fits the kind of game I start wanting once the evenings get darker.
You play as Makoto, a student temporarily working in her aunt’s convenience store in a small Japanese town. There are shelves to stock, products to arrange and customers to serve, but it isn’t really about running the most efficient shop possible.
The customers are the important part.
People come back, you learn more about them and ordinary conversations gradually become the main reason to keep playing.
I loved how mundane a lot of it is. Sometimes you really are just organising a shelf or standing behind a till, and that quiet routine is exactly what makes it work.
Lake
Game Image: Lake, Developer Image:
Gameous
Available on: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Lake is probably one of the quietest games on this list.
You play as Meredith, who temporarily leaves her job in the city and returns to her hometown to cover her father’s postal route. Most of your days are spent driving around Providence Oaks, delivering post and talking to the people you meet.
There isn’t a huge amount of challenge. You drive, stop the van, deliver something and carry on.
And sometimes that’s exactly what I want.
It has the feeling of a game you can put on without needing to be particularly switched on, while still giving you characters and a story to follow. It’s not spooky or witchy at all, but it fits the slower side of autumn really well.
Game Image: Oxenfree, Developer Image: Night School Studio
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
OXENFREE is for the point in October where I want something properly creepy, but I still don’t actually want to play horror.
A group of teenagers head to an island for the night and accidentally open a supernatural rift. From there, you explore the island, use a radio to interact with strange frequencies and make dialogue choices that affect both the story and your relationships with the other characters.
There’s no traditional combat, which is one of the reasons I still find it approachable despite the darker atmosphere.
It can definitely get unsettling, though. The abandoned locations, radio interference and supernatural story are much creepier than most of the games on this list.
For Halloween week, that’s exactly why I’d pick it.
Beacon Pines
Game Image: Beacon Pines, Developer Image: Hiding Spot
Available on: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox
Beacon Pines looks incredibly cute, but there’s something strange going on almost immediately.
You play as Luka, a young deer investigating mysterious events around his town with his friends. The clever part is how the story works. As you explore, you collect word charms that can be inserted into different parts of the book, changing what happens and opening up new branches of the story.
That means reaching an ending isn’t necessarily the end. You can go back, change a word and see how differently things play out.
It’s short, story-focused and has that lovely illustrated storybook look, but there’s enough mystery underneath it to make it feel particularly good around October.
Cute woodland animals investigating something unsettling is apparently exactly my level of autumn horror.
Wylde Flowers
Game Image: Wylde Flowers, Developer Image: Studio Drydock Pty
Available on: PC, Nintendo Switch
Wylde Flowers combines two things that already work extremely well for autumn: farming and witches.
You play as Tara, who moves to Fairhaven to help her grandmother with the family farm. During the day, you’re growing crops, fishing, cooking and getting to know the people who live in town. As the story progresses, you also discover Tara’s connection to magic and become involved with the local coven.
The characters and story are a much bigger part of Wylde Flowers than they are in a lot of farming sims, so it’s particularly good if you like having something pushing you forward beyond making more money or upgrading the farm.
Between the potions, spells, farming and changing seasons, it fits autumn without feeling like you’re playing something that only makes sense around Halloween.
Wytchwood
Game Image: Wytchwood, Developer Image: Alien Trap
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Playstation
Wytchwood goes much harder on the fairytale witch side of autumn.
You play as an old witch travelling through a strange storybook world, gathering ingredients, crafting potions and using spells to deal with the various characters and creatures you meet.
There is quite a lot of collecting involved. You’ll regularly realise you need one ingredient, which requires another ingredient, which means going back somewhere else entirely. If you hate that kind of crafting chain, it might test your patience.
But if you enjoy having a clear list of things to gather and make, it can be very satisfying.
Visually, it’s hard to beat for autumn. Twisted forests, mushrooms, strange creatures, potions and an illustrated fairytale style give it a proper woodland-witch feeling.
Game Image: Winter Burrow, Developer Image: Pine Creek Games
Available on: PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
Winter Burrow is technically taking us into the next season, but it feels right once you hit late autumn and the weather starts getting properly cold.
You play as a tiny mouse returning to your childhood home and finding the burrow in ruins. You need to gather resources, craft tools, knit warm clothes and slowly turn it back into somewhere comfortable to live.
There are light survival elements, particularly when you’re outside in the cold, so it isn’t completely pressure free. You have to pay attention to your warmth and prepare properly before travelling too far.
I’d also give the same warning I gave in my review: there are insects in the game, including areas that may be uncomfortable if bugs or spider like creatures bother you.
But coming back from the cold to a warm little burrow, cooking and fixing up your home is very hard to resist once November hits.
Which Cozy Games Are You Playing This Autumn?
I think that’s why I like putting together an autumn list rather than just another Halloween one.
Sometimes I do want witches, ghosts and something a bit creepy. Moonlight Peaks, Wytchwood, Night in the Woods and OXENFREE are perfect when I’m in that mood.
But other evenings I’d much rather organise books in Tiny Bookshop, do another day on my farm or spend an hour talking to customers in inKONBINI.
Autumn gives me an excuse to do both.
If there’s a cozy game you always end up playing once the evenings get darker, let me know. I’m very easily convinced to add another game to the list!
Looking for more Witchy Games?
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From witchy farming sims and slightly spooky mysteries to bookshops, quiet stories and relaxing management games, here are 20 cozy games that are perfect for autumn.