We live in an age of dopamine hits, brain-rotting content, and crumbling attention spans. Some of the most popular games out there offer quick, short bursts of joy that anyone can jump into when they have a bit of time to spare, but for those who call gaming a hobby, longer and more deliberate experiences are often more preferable.
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Sit down with a cup of hot chocolate or dedicate hours to perfecting your strategy; these games all encourage you to be patient and intentional rather than rushing through their campaigns. We've included a decent variety of games from survival sandboxes to walking simulators and even a few RPGs for those looking for extra epic experiences.
Find all 10 pairs
Find all 10 pairs
Valheim
Slow And Steady Viking Survival
As is customary with many survival games, slow and steady approaches are rewarded over rushing into a solution. Valheim is that way, too. If you're expecting a highly approachable survival game a la Minecraft, you might be caught off guard.
There are far more threats in Valheim than in Mojang's sandbox, so you're forced to slow down your gameplay in order to think critically and really plan out your next step. There's also a progression in the game. Each biome you move into has a unique boss waiting for you, so you always have a specific goal you're working towards. The catch is, you can't rush good results, especially if you're only just starting your journey as a Viking.
Death Stranding
Don't Endanger The Cargo
A lot of people describe Death Stranding as a walking simulator, and it's not hard to see why. Your job is to deliver packages across a post-apocalyptic continent, but it's not that simple. The terrain you traverse is tough at times, and you'll have to pace yourself and choose your footing carefully if you don't want the package you're delivering to suffer.
As you go through the quests, you'll make your movement a bit smoother with a few upgrades, but until then, it's definitely a game that forces you to be intentional about your gameplay. Relax, take it easy, appreciate the views, and enjoy the music that adjusts to the pace of your movement.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
What's The Rush, Dragonborn?
If there's one Bethesda game out there that really encourages you to take it slow, it has to be Skyrim. This is a game that makes it onto the cozy game list of a lot of people, despite being an open-world RPG with quite a bit of combat, action, and even some scary moments. However, the atmosphere, the idle chatter of NPCs, and the incredible music of Jeremy Soule make it impossible not to just stop and appreciate your surroundings.
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With all the more passive and idle activities in the game now, from cooking to fishing to alchemy and even getting married to someone and settling down into your little home, it feels like a game that can more easily become a simulation and a sandbox rather than some urgent quest to the end of the story.
Eastshade
You'll Want To Truly Savor The Beauty Of This Adventure
Cozy games are often going to be slower-paced by design, just like Eastshade. The premise is pretty unique, putting you into the shoes of a painter who helps the very much owl-like local characters during their travels and paints the game's incredible views on canvas.
You get a truly vibrant world to explore on a bike, and taking your time to really look through every nook and cranny is rewarded with intriguing puzzles and nifty secrets. It's one of those games where the journey through various biomes and landmarks is all the fun, so there's no point in trying to unlock every location with every upgrade.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
There Are No Shortcuts To Mastering Combat
A classic open-world RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is packed full of side activities that will keep players busy and distracted from the main quest. There's a lot of love and dedication that's been put into the game world as well, with downright simulation-like interactions with the world and the NPCs, but that's not the only reason why you might want to slow down your pace in this game.
The combat system will keep anyone uninitiated from trying to rush to the end. It's a bit of a learning curve that forces you to take your fights in a slower, much more strategic way, instead of the hack-and-slash method that you might find in some other games. It's certainly punishing, but mastering all the quirks will be highly satisfying.
Minecraft
The Time And World Are All Infinite
Unless you're playing in Hardcore, Minecraft is never going to rush you to do anything. You could stand still for days without doing anything, dying over and over again, only to respawn and start again. That's the beauty of it: there's no end to the game. Even after the Ender Dragon is defeated, time moves on forever, and ever, as does the world.
While you could get your fun out of it within an intense two-week Minecraft phase, there are also a lot of constraints in the vanilla version that encourage you to linger and appreciate what you've made so far. Crops grow at their own pace, baby animals take a while to grow up, villagers refresh their trades and engage in daily routines, and more. The world goes at a leisurely pace around you, and the mellow music, drifting clouds, the coming and going of rain and snow will lull you into a cozy mood where there's no rush to do anything.
No Man's Sky
The World Is Your Oyster
To continue with another sandbox game, we have No Man's Sky. It's a more detailed, sci-fi experience than Minecraft, with a whole galaxy at your fingertips to explore. Starting off with nothing but yourself and a ship, you can decide what path you take. Do you live among the stars, always traveling around, perhaps engaging in a bit of trade? Or do you settle down on the first nice plant you find and build a house?
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It may be a sci-fi game, but there's no immense urgency, no massive call to action, or huge threat to spur you onwards. You can spend hours tinkering away and watching the sky shift above you. In that sense, No Man's Sky invites you to appreciate the fruits of your labor after you've spent days working on a base, but also the strange, alien environments around you.
Outer Wilds
The Loop Is Endless, So Savor The Mystery
Outer Wilds is a game that, if you know exactly what to do, you could probably finish within ten to fifteen minutes of gameplay. But where would be the fun in that? The whole point of this game is in the journey of exploration that you undertake as an astronaut, exploring the unknown and trying to decode what you can't understand.
The solar system you live in is stuck in a timeloop of one day, and during this loop, certain events and phenomena take place on specific planets. These locations and events can help you figure out what's happening, but with only 22 minutes available in each loop, you can't solve everything organically at once. The best part? The game doesn't punish you for taking your time. Endure as many loops as you need to. After all, the beauty is in the joy of discovery.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
A Mysterious Walking Simulator In A Beautiful World
Walking simulators, by design, similar to sandboxes, tend to encourage players to either play slowly or to define their own pace. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter leans more towards slowness, because a great part of the experience is what you find in Red Creek Valley. Visit every nook and cranny, examine everything, and you'll get the most out of this spooky mystery.
There are puzzles and clues scattered everywhere, and although even at a slow pace it's a relatively short game, it's something you'll want to savor for its haunting atmosphere and that slightly eerie sense of solitude amid complete wilderness. You will be both at peace and delightfully creeped out by the end of this murder mystery tale.
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