There’s something oddly comforting about being small in a big, cold world — especially when that world happens to be Winter Burrow. This cosy survival adventure drops players into the snow-dusted paws of a mouse that lives in a tree after their parents sadly passed in the city. Returning home to their sweet childhood burrow, what’s meant to be a simple homecoming quickly turns into a quiet mystery: your burrow has fallen into ruin, you witnessed a beloved aunt be taken by an owl (talk about trauma), and the once-familiar woods are frozen over.
From there, Winter Burrow becomes a gentle survival sim about rebuilding, reconnecting, and staying warm in every sense of the word. Players will forage, craft, cook, and decorate while exploring a world that feels vast compared to your tiny frame. Let’s get into it.
Cold Comforts
Winter Burrow has all the usual ingredients of a survival game, but served up with a softer touch. It starts by patching up your burrow: a small network of rooms buried beneath the snow inside a tree. To do this players will need to start collecting small items such as twigs and leaves on the ground and venturing out into the frozen forest to gather supplies. Every branch, berry, and tuft of fur matters. Sounds crazy, right? The thing is, Winter Burrow adds an extra element of gameplay that you need to focus on out in the cold: you’ll quickly need to learn to juggle your warmth, hunger, stamina and health.
This immediately reminded me of Don’t Starve, but unlike the harsh punishments of the aforementioned, the stakes here are delightfully low. In fact, I actually died on purpose to just to see what it would do. You do lose a lot of your inventory, but it stays in the same place so you can go back and get it.
Around you will be a plethora of food resources and items for you to collect. If you haven’t brought food with you, don’t worry: there will be lots of mushrooms around for you to eat or berries to pick off of branches. If you stay too long without clothes that you’ve made to stay warm, you’ll start to shiver. However early game resources will mean survival is a expected. Eventually that shivering will turn into you becoming very hungry and then your health will start to deplete. This basically feels like me everyday in Winter, to be honest. Although there’s risk, the world never feels cruel. It’s a game that encourages planning without panic, the kind of survival loop that feels more like a Winter routine than a battle for existence.
As you progress, players will craft tools for chopping, digging, and sewing; cook hearty meals that boost your energy or give you special bonuses – such as moving faster or increasing your heat or health meter – and knit cosy outfits to fend off the cold. There’s a real satisfaction in returning home after a long day of foraging, unpacking your finds, and watching your burrow gradually transform from a frosty ruin into a glowing, lived-in space. The small upgrades are very homely and cute, although at first it becomes a bit confusing because you get different styles of furniture quite quickly. I thought this would be akin to how much health you maybe could recover, but I think they’re just for decorative purposes only. It’s still fun: you can make items out of wood or eventually stone and whatever aesthetic you would like most.
There’s plenty to make and unlock too: you need to fix the stairs. You need to get into the basement and then unlock kind of the contents of the basement. You need to fix and repair your furniture to knit, and your stove to cook. There’s a lot to do, and as you continue throughout the game, more and more unlocks happen, which can be quite satisfying. I actually really enjoyed this portion of the game. I am a little bit of a collector-thon geek, so I do enjoy that kind of hunter-gatherer-builder loop.
A Frosty Reception
Exploration is your next and main task of the game. The world feels open and full of little secrets: hidden nooks beneath trees, frozen rivers to cross, and tiny animal neighbours with stories to share. But that openness also brings a bit of friction. I wasn’t going to mention this so early in the review, but I do think that it needs saying. I think with games like this when there are lots of little nooks and crannies and you’re kind of constantly exploring, there needs to be either a mini-map, or a fast travel system.
It’s the type of game where you might walk through to the edge of your screen and then it starts up and your in a new kind of environment. That’s all well and good at the very start of the game and it’s quite fun really. It’s part of the survival to kind of see how far you can get and kind of then go back home for the nighttime, as there is a facsimile of a day/night cycle.
Regardless of clothing, players will start with a small inventory, as is usually the norm for these types of games. Because of this you have to keep making trips back to your little burrow where you can offload stuff into a stash. I kind of found myself becoming frustrated with that loop because whilst there are eventual shortcuts and checkpoints dotted around the world, and the ability to add kindling to an abandoned campfire, that’s not always possible. You do learn how to make an overnight kit, but this also required making it, keeping space for it, etc. So venturing out in the snow does require a bit of planning and commitment.
At first, whenever you meet a friendly companion in the forest (and I’ll get onto them in a minute) you warm up instantly so that’s a good little checkpoint. Whilst you can do all of that, like warm up next to a companion or put kindling in a fire if you have the kindling, you also do eventually need to go home and offload your stash because your inventory is only so big and you have a long trudge back. So it can really test your patience because what I found was sometimes I would do so much in a day I’d be turning myself around.
The game does include a footprint system that lets you see where you’ve walked, a charming touch, but those tracks only last a day. Once you start exploring and getting into the thick of it, it’s easy to get lost, especially when everything’s blanketed in white. I’ve upgraded my bag three times now, and I still find myself requiring to eventually go home to dump off my stuff in a stash. Then you have to remember where you came from, especially if you are looking for something anyway. You’ve now lost your place and need to start from point A again. It grated on me and eventually it became annoying and frustrating to know that I had to find my way home, to come all the way back.
You know, a simple campfire to campfire fast track, or even a mini map would solve this issue, because the footprints aren’t sufficient enough to do what you want it to do. Also, there is the ability to make chests and just dump them around the map. It’s just that the flow and feel of the game don’t feel as if it’s really suggesting we do this? It starts off so cosy and continues to be quite cosy all the way through, so I find it hard to believe that that’s what is expected of me. I also don’t see the point in it. It’s already giving me game fatigue just thinking about doing that as it requires me to know the map inside and out to do so.
You will eventually find your way around. For example, companions stay in the same place and I definitely remembered the way to them, for sure, but that isn’t always possible because of the environment. If you turn yourself around enough, you will not be able to tell where you are on the map.
The only thing that gives this away is what type of wood is on the ground. That roughly tells me how far away you are from home, but it doesn’t tell you how to get back. It doesn’t tell me how to get to the companion I just came from either. The environments do sometimes feel like a copy and paste of one another, but at a different angle. Sure, there are some little locations where you think, ‘Ok, I recognise that snail shell,’ but it’s not common to know or pinpoint, especially when you’re juggling other tasks. It sadly took the momentum out of a game with something that could be so enjoyable.
Pawprints in the Snow
On a much lovelier note, I can’t talk about Winter Burrow without mentioning how gorgeous it looks. The entire game could be mistaken for a hand-painted storybook. The world feels a good size, but also dense. Lighting plays a big part in the magic. The way the world shifts from a dusky morning to the living day-night cycle that quietly pushes you toward rest. At night, your burrow glows like a candle, which adds to the magic.
The soundtrack is a soft, delicate mix of piano, acoustic strings, and ambient sounds that ebb and flow with your actions. It’s the sort of music that feels less like a score and more akin to an immersive experience. There’s a genuine intimacy to it all, an attention to quiet moments that feeds the monster of the cosy genre.
The companions you meet along the way all have their individual personalities. That’s what really brings the game its meat. They enrich the story and you’ll have tasks to complete for each companion that you meet along the way. This can be simple tasks such as collecting twigs and berries for them, or more complex tasks like finding their own lost companion at times as well. They will give you blueprints to upgrade your tools to be able to get to more locations once you’ve completed their requested tasks. Thankfully there’s a task tracker so you don’t lose sight or forget what you need to do in the snow.
Not everything runs as smoothly as the mouse’s scamper. I’ve had a few frame rate drops while exploring, especially when new areas load in. It’s nothing game breaking, but noticeable enough to pull you out of the flow. The lack of navigation tools also becomes more noticeable the longer you play. When the world opens up, it’s easy to wish for a little more structure, a compass, a mini map, or something, anything. Still, these are mild frustrations and there is real potential here. The developers clearly want players to live in this world, not just survive it, and that intention shines through even when the snow gets a bit deep.
Winter Burrow is the kind of game that sneaks up on you. It’s cozy and challenging enough to stay engaging, gentle enough to be relaxing and enjoyable to play to a point. It borrows the DNA of Don’t Starve but replaces its frantic energy with something a bit more peaceful like survival as self-care, in a cold world.
I do feel like this game is at risk of overstaying its welcome with all the back and forth, so whilst this game is beautifully whimsical, it does require patience. If you’re looking for something to curl up with as the nights draw in, something that captures the feeling of being small, brave and hopeful all at once, Winter Burrow is exactly the kind of game you’ll want to burrow into.
Winter Burrow is out November 12th on PC (review platform), Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.
Developer: Pine Creek Games
Publisher: Noodlecake Studios
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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