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Pastoral Playtime

Cottagecore is an online term celebrating an idealised rural life. Although games are usually considered to be hard, harsh and technological, many of them play to this aesthetic that is sentimental about traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking, and pottery.

Games sometimes use these rural pursuits as play mechanics, like Stardew Valley, Potion Craft, Terraria and Fantasy Life. Others use Cottagecore as a guide to how they look and feel, like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Stillness of the Wind and Mutazione.

However it plays out in the game, Cottagecore aims to satisfy a desire for aspirational nostalgia and an escape from stress or trauma. The New York Times described it as a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding. The Guardian called it a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors."

These games emphasize simplicity and the slow pace of pastoral life as an escape from the modern world in favour of the bucolic. Unsurprisingly this has become more popular on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some ways, the resurgence of retro games could be seen in a similar light, although here the sentimental nostalgia is for virtual entertainment rather than rural lifestyle.

This list includes 52 games from the last 19 years, with 1,545 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to escape into cottagecore .

List Details

PEGI Ratings: PEGI 3 to PEGI 16
ESRB Ratings: ESRB EVERYONE to ESRB MATURE 17+
Australian Ratings: G to R 18+
Genres: Action, Adventure, Brain Game, Collecting, Communication, Creative, Fighting, Narrative, Platform, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Race, Rhythm, Role-Play, Sequencing, Shooting, Simulation, Sports, Stealth, Strategy, Traversal and World Building
Total Likes: 1,545

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Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

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Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid, Open World and Pixels

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Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Stadia, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Blocks, Day and Night, Pixels and Weather

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Release Date: 14/09/2004

Out Now: Mac, PC, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Fable is an adventure role-playing game set in a fantasy world where your interactions with the world and villagers, and decisions about your use of magical power, substantially alter the story and the environment.

Wood and Weather

Release Date: Coming soon

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Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night, Hand-Made, Open World and Weather

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Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

Release Date: 12/08/2015, updated in 2016

Out Now: Mac, PC and PS4

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

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Tchia

Release Date: 17/03/2023

Out Now: PC, PS4 and PS5

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Open World and Weather

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Release Date: 22/11/2013

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Hand-Made and Open World

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Release Date: 21/07/2023

Out Now: Switch

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Day and Night

Pikmin 4 is the latest in a series of puzzle games where you direct hordes of titular plant-like creatures to navigate garden locations. Different colour Pikmins have different abilities so the challenge is to get enough of the right ones to destroy...

Rootown

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels

Rootown is a traversal strategy game where you guide tree roots down through the soil. You play by planting a tree and then steering its roots to find good soil and avoid stones. The better you do the bigger the tree and the more resources you have to...

Station To Station

Release Date: 03/10/2023

Coming Soon: PC

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks and Pixels

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Summerhill

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon and Day and Night

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Cozy Grove

Release Date: 19/03/2021, updated in 2023

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Hand-Made and Open World

Cozy Grove is a life simulation where you camp on a hand-drawn island. You play a scout and explore the ever-changing island's forest to find secrets and help the local ghosts. Like Animal Crossing, it has a children's storybook look but is a...

Thousand Threads

Release Date: 30/07/2020

Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Hand-Made and Open World

Thousand Threads is an open-world game of consequences. You are free to interact with the world, animals and people however you like, give, take, save, kill, inform, hide, befriend, and betray. But how you do this will have ongoing and unavoidable...

One Hour One Life

Release Date: 27/02/2018

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Hand-Made and Open World

One Hour One Life is a civilisation survival game where each player lives a whole life in an hour of play and then passes away. Born as a baby into the care of anonymous other online players, you initially depend on them for food. Quickly growing, you...

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Release Date: 21/09/2021

Out Now: PC and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

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Release Date: 05/08/2021

Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Hand-Made and Open World

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Release Date: 02/06/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night and Open World

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Release Date: 19/05/2021, updated in 2023

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

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Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

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Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

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Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

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Release Date: 18/02/2022

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid and Weather

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Everdale

Release Date: 18/08/2021

Out Now: Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

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Release Date: 15/10/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Components: 3D Third-Person

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Release Date: 28/09/2023

Out Now: PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

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Release Date: 10/08/2021

Out Now: PC, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

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Release Date: 20/01/2022, updated in 2023

Out Now: PC, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon and Open World

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Release Date: 09/08/2018

Out Now: PC, PS4 and Switch

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

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Llama Villa

Llama Villa (Sokpop)

Release Date: 01/08/2018

Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Open World

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Staxel

Release Date: 23/09/2021

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Blocks and Open World

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Baldo: The Guardian Owls

Release Date: 27/08/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

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Future Unfolding

Release Date: 15/03/2017

Out Now: Mac, PC and PS4

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Open World

Future Unfolding is an exploration adventure where you travel into beautiful landscapes to unfold the mysteries hidden around you. Viewed from above, you have a bird's eye view as you encounter different types of wild animals, some helpful and some...

Leaving Lyndow

Release Date: 08/02/2017

Out Now: Mac, PC and PS4

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

Leaving Lyndow is a narrative adventure set a couple of generations before Eastshade. Sharing the same anthropomorphized animal society, although here at an earlier stage, it's a game about the memories we make in the places we...

Little King's Story

Release Date: 22/04/2009, updated in 2016

Out Now: PC, PS Vita and Wii

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Little King's Story is a real-time strategy game that simulates life in a fictional kingdom. You play a timid boy who finds a crown that gives him power to make people follow orders. You slowly expand your village by gathering resources and gaining...

Revenant Hill

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: PC, PS4 and PS5

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Revenant Hill is a narrative adventure set in 1919 where you play a cat called Twigs where animals and people lead lives next to each other. Play involves making connections and earning friendships from interactions, social deduction and some light...

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Pastoral Playtime

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