Even as a massive Tove Jansson fan and seasoned cozy gamer, I'm not exactly the typical audience for Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, thanks to one small quirk of mine: I hate winter. For over a decade I've been mocked by the snippy virtual breezes and crunchy cartoony snow in cozy games, and the idea of playing a title purely set in a chilly landscape sends a shiver down my spine in more ways than one. However, Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth has done the impossible. It made me enjoy and look differently at the cursed season.
Winter is a staple in most modern cozy titles, especially those with year-long cycles as part of their gameplay loop. However, playing the best farming games like Stardew Valley for 10 plus years, I've found every title's take on winter is annoyingly limited and disruptive. In Stardew Valley, farming is essentially pointless, and in the likes of Animal Crossing New Horizons, the snow makes decorating annoying as your island looks vastly different when green. While Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is a cozy narrative game and not a life sim, it's one I'd still generally avoid thanks to my hatred of its titular season. But I love Moomin, and as I began playing it, I was soon hooked with a story that I could oddly relate to. One featuring a fellow winter hater on an internal journey of emotional growth.
A dark start
If you aren't familiar with Tove Jansson's work, the Moomins are the main stars in a series of novels and comics. They are a family of fantastical trolls that share a striking resemblance with cute hippopotamuses that live in the idyllic Moomin Valley. And, a key point to remember here is that they hibernate every winter (oh, how I envy them). Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, adapts Jansson's 1957 novel Moominland Midwinter into a calming puzzle adventure game, where Moomintroll (the son of the Moomin family) has woken up from his hibernation early and has to deal with the unforgiving cold and being alone for the first time in his life.
From the moment Moomintroll wakes up, the tone of the game is much darker than the first title developed by Hyper Games a few years ago, Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. Unlike the start of Snufkin's journey, which began with a leisurely stroll before he started to notice the environmental changes caused by the construction of new parks, Moomintroll's adventure begins with him wandering around his home alone to discover the source of a strange noise. And, when we venture outside for the first time, the weather is shown to be dangerous, and there is even a critical health concern straight off the bat.
Moomintroll's first introduction to the season, who he personifies as The Lady of Cold, is a vicious one, which makes him determined to bring back Spring and put a stop to winter as quickly as he possibly can. See? Relatable. After the slightly traumatic opening and the wise words of his friend Too-Ticky, players have to help Moomintroll prepare for the Great Winter Bonfire, which we are told will aid his winter eradication goal. Much like Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley, you'll have to solve environmental puzzles to progress the story, and will also encounter other notable characters from the Moomin franchise along the way.
By solving your friends' issues, you'll also unlock a series of tools that let you explore new sections of the map, such as mittens to create snowballs in order to knock down icicles, or a shovel to clear paths buried in snow. Each of the tools is simple but very satisfying to use, and honestly, I probably should have known that this game would challenge my seasonal prejudices with how much fun I found snowball fights with Little My, or clearing away paths just for the satisfaction of it all.
A kindred spirit
However, what really makes Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is its wholesome, intimate story. Each of Moomintroll's friends has a personal issue, which the game's writing expertly interweaves with exploration or fetch-quest tasks that Moomintroll must embark on to help them overcome it. While each character has a unique issue, by the end of the story, they all have grown, overcoming their own fears, anxiety and misconceptions in some kind of way.
Fillyjonk is made to realize that playing outside sometimes is good for her children, Misable accepts that people do want her around despite a devastating letter that her sister wrote suggesting otherwise; and the delusional dog Sorry-oo finally finds a pack that will accept him. In typical Moomin fashion, I was left smiling with most of these interactions and was subsequently caught up in Moomintroll's own internal growth as well. The more I ventured outside and played in the snow, the more I started to see its charm.
The game's art style is downright breathtaking, and the depictions of winter feel straight out of a storybook. The wind is harsh, blocking certain paths at times, and you can slip down ledges when you aren't paying attention, but everything still sparkles through it all. As Moomintroll works tirelessly to stop The Lady of the Cold, you can't help but notice the season's beauty, and thanks to satisfying exploration mechanics that employ clear progression signposting as well as limited backtracking, the tools you unlock and use to do so also show that it can be surprisingly fun.
Moomintroll slowly realizes that he can't stop nature, and that the season he once hated has its own charms. And, after the six hours it took me to complete Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, I had to admit that it caused me to have a similar experience.
Seasonal thoughts
Now, I will say that despite the fact that Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth never made me feel tired of seeing snow like other cozy games historically have, I do still prefer Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley out of the two games. But this, surprisingly, isn't due to Snuffkin's spring setting. Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is a much more introspective kind of story that also uses its winter setting to show how alone Moomintroll first feels waking up by himself. Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley has more tangible adversaries requiring more direct action, such as sneaking through parks in stealth sections. Moomintroll, on the other hand, is working against the elements. I simply find the former a more engaging gameplay experience. However, Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth did still affect me deeply.
Winter doesn't feel like a chore in this game, nor a boring backdrop. The gameplay mechanics don't ask you to stressfully manage any systems in order to survive; they simply ask you to work with the cold environment around you to move forward, both physically and emotionally. I can happily say that out of the hundreds of cozy games that I've played in my life, this is the first one that didn't leave me missing the sun. Instead, I foresee a few more playthroughs as I work to 100% it, working with The Lady of the Cold as opposed to plotting her demise.
If you are after more cozy games, head on over to our list of the best relaxing games to play today. Or for more releases, you can read our round-up of all the new games on the way.
