With the new year, we welcome new movies, series, and games. While major titles are coming this year, such as Resident Evil: Requiem, you might be looking for more wholesome gaming sessions. From farming to platforming and simulating life, the cozy game scene has immense potential. If you’re curious about what kind of chill games are dropping this year, you can check out our list of the 8 best cozy game releases to look forward to in 2026.
Inkonbini: One Store. Many Stories
You’ve probably come across a lot of grocery simulator games with little to no exact end goal of just expanding your shop. But in Inkonbini, you’re not only running a Japanese convenience store, but also learning about the life of the townsfolk set in the early 1990s.
Inkonbini currently has a demo available for you to play, allowing you to try out the game’s features, including shelving goods, unpacking items, organizing them, and engaging in meaningful conversations with your customers. Another great thing to note about this game is its player-choice narrative, wherein your decisions in dialogue can impact your customers’ lives.
Big Hops
If you’re up for an adventure, Big Hops is a 3D platformer wherein you can bounce on lily pads, walk on tightropes, swing with your froggy tongue, and much more. As you find your way home, you’ll meet many animal friends, foes and explore the big world around you.
Each new area you come across in the game has its own story, characters, and conflicts. You can also navigate your world with the help of some power-up veggies that can help you get through different obstacles. Overall, it’s a game that combines adventure, cuteness, and some froggy parkour.
On-Together: Virtual Co-Working
Little time to play? Consider On Together: Virtual Co-Working. This virtual co-working social game allows you to hang out with your friends, chat, chill, and be productive together. You can customize your avatar to fit your vibe, stay organized with your tasks, and even take breaks and play some multiplayer games.
A unique feature of On-Together is that the game can stand as your cozy companion even outside of its launcher. From researching a paper to doing office work, you and your friends can be seen on your desktop, browser, and on top of other device applications.
Thrifty Business
From the makers of Sticky Business comes the game Thrifty Business. Here, you run your own thrift shop as a management simulation game. You can look for hidden treasures, nostalgic items, clothes, antiques, and more.
The game allows you to lay out and organize your shelves and racks to the tiniest detail, group your items however you please, and customize furniture, wallpaper, and decor to make your store as cozy as possible. You’ll also be able to listen to your customers’ stories and fulfill their requests, cultivating relationships and making a cool third space for the locals.
Lost and Found Co.
Are you a Where’s Waldo? fan? Look no further, as Lost and Found Co. is the ultimate hidden object adventure game. You play as Ducky, a duck-turned-human intern at a magical startup that’s dedicated to finding lost items in a whimsical world filled with several interactive characters and objects.
The game isn’t only focused on its adventure story, as there are a lot of challenging levels to find objects and return them to their owners. With that in mind, you can spend a lot of time with this game, sharpening your eagle-eye skills and having fun with it.
Loftia
In Loftia, you’re dropped into an environmental simulation farm life wherein you and your friends are building a sustainable future. From spearheading community projects, unlocking resources, and discovering islands, the game turns trash into adorable treasures you can use.
With its close-to-real-life farming mechanics, you can try out hydroponics, aquaponics, and trellis farming. Plus, you can create your tools from renewable energy. The game has a lot of potential in terms of wholesome fun and scientific learning.
Moonlight Peaks
Another unique farming sim you should look out for is Moonlight Peaks. As the child of Count Dracula, you try to prove to him that compassion is possible by living morally and sustaining yourself with your magical farm and the vast supernatural world around you.
Besides living your life as a vampire, you can meet different locals such as fellow vampires, werewolves, witches, and even mermaids. The game has its own dating system. Also, as you progress in the game, you can develop your vampire abilities that will make your time in Moonlight Peaks much easier.
ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs
Then we have ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs. Here, you run a small electronics repair shop in mid-2000s Tokyo, Japan. You’ll be restoring iconic gadgets and consoles from that period of time and talking to customers, and learning more about them.
What makes this cozy game a standout to look forward to is how it gets into the details of disassembling, reassembling, and restoring a variety of technology. Some iconic Atari consoles have officially been licensed for the game, and that’s saying something about what to expect from this distinct cozy game title.