Ophelia Payne

Winter Burrow immediately captured my attention with its adorable storybook look when I first saw it announced. It’s classified as a family-friendly survival game, and that genre really isn’t something I am familiar with, so I was curious how the devs at Pine Creek Games would approach it. The nature of survival games can be quite dark. Normally, your character starts with nothing other than the drive to find food. Once you find food, you will learn additional skills and attempt new goals. While Winter Burrow challenges you to live through a freezing winter as a small mouse, it is family-friendly in the fact that nothing truly gruesome happens. There is no real violence, no blood, and if you pass out from the cold, you can respawn in your warm and safe home.

All of that being said, it is not without its moments of darkness. During the opening sequence of the game, you are faced with the story of how your parents died after moving your family to the city for a better life, sending you back to your woodland home from your childhood memories. You are hoping your Aunt Betulina will be waiting for you there.

When you arrive at your dilapidated home, your Aunt is nowhere to be found. Your first order of business is to craft a tiny axe to chop down twigs and fallen branches, so you have wood to build a fire. You will also locate and harvest food like mushrooms and berries. In your home, you have a crafting bench and a worn armchair. Once you’ve repaired it, you can sit and knit. Knitting allows you to create warmer clothing and rope for crafting. Warm clothing is essential. As soon as you leave your home, your body temperature begins to drop. In the beginning, this means you can’t travel too far from your home. When your temperature meter drops to 50%, frost will appear on the edges of the screen, encroaching further across the screen as you get colder. Once your body temperature meter fully disappears, your health bar will drop as well. Making your way back home and sleeping will replenish these meters. These are all standard mechanics of the survival genre, four meters in total, Health, Hunger, Temperature and Stamina. Eating food can also lengthen the time you can survive outdoors, with some food items giving your temperature and health boosts. Creating recipes with ingredients found also provides new food items, each with its own benefits.

Before too long, you are repairing a bridge to make your way to meet your Aunty. She doesn’t know about your parents and sets out to help you in the way you might think a beloved Aunty would. She teaches you survival skills and recipes. Not long after you meet her, she will require your help, and that’s where the story and map really open up.

Winter Burrow’s graphic style is simply delightful. It’s reminiscent of a hand-illustrated children’s book. Charming. Your tiny mouse will leave even tinier footprints in the show as you meander the wilderness. This is extremely helpful when trying to retrace your steps to get back to your home, as there is no map at all. I found this to be pretty stressful when faced with the possibility of freezing to death or running out of inventory space and having to head home. These were both common situations, especially in the beginning, when you only have nine inventory slots. Three of which are taken up by your trusty axe, pickaxe, and shovel (all essential to scavenging). Add in a snack or two, and inventory slots are limited. This doesn’t really get much better as you move along, either. Despite opening more inventory slots, you are often running out of space, especially if you choose to bring kindling to start a fire with you as well.

Winter Burrow does include a hint of the Metroidvania genre as well. As you acquire crafting recipes from the woodland critters you encounter, you will be able to access areas of the forest you previously weren’t able to. Now, larger maps to explore and still no map…you can see why this can be frustrating, trying to navigate unless you’re diligent in making notes of landmarks as you move around. The stamina bar may have been the most frustrating to control; a few swings of an axe, and it was depleted. Yes, stopping activities lets it replenish, but this means everything takes longer than it should. Especially dangerous when you’re also combating the cold, hunger, and aggressive insects.

One thing that really stood out to me was the characters you meet throughout your journey. Each is distinctive. Different animals, different stories, and different personalities. Each will help increase your survival techniques and abilities after you help them. Each of them is seemingly just trying to find their way in the cold, harsh world. While the game is family-friendly. There are some deeper and darker stories in play. These may not be entirely obvious to younger players or to those who skip through the dialogue quickly without reading it. The stories and themes touch on things like unforced loneliness, shrinking yourself for others and other relatable topics.

I am the type of gamer who has struggled to fall in love with and stay engaged with the survival genre. They are often too finicky with trying to balance all of the things you need to do, and I find that stressful. In general, I enjoy more relaxed (cozy) games. Luckily, Winter Burrow leans to a more casual and laid-back form of survival where crafting and management are more straightforward and forgiving. Yes, if you end up passing out from the cold, you will drop all of your items collected, but you will wake up at home and will have your trusty tools at least. You can find your dropped items where you passed out if you make your way back to that location.

With gameplay lasting around 10-12 hours, Winter Burrow doesn’t overstay its welcome. While I struggled without a map (a personal issue with a lot of games), its delightful art style and interesting characters kept me engaged and playing. I also loved that you could turn arachnophobia mode on, meaning spiders wouldn’t appear in the game. An easier entry point to test out the survival genre, and being included with Xbox Game Pass, I have no hesitation recommending Winter Burrow to people who might want to get lost in the wilderness with a cute little mouse for a few hours.

*Reviewed on Xbox Series X, via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate*