It’s a dreadful feeling that all cozy game players feel at some point.You’ve saved the town–now what?
Cozy games typically follow similar story loops. Something is threatening some town or place, and it’s up to the player to farm, mine, and sometimes fight their way to throw off the great evil.
When all is said and done, however, players typically have to return to their farms or homes and follow the same gameplay loops, which suddenly feel a lot less rewarding. Not every cozy game follows this pattern, however.
There are a few gems out there that offer a lot of content and things to do even after the main story arc is complete.
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I tend to bounce off cozy games when it feels like I’m doing the same thing over and over without any real progression. If you’re in the same boat and prefer cozy games that have extensive endgame content to keep yourself engaged, then check out these heavy hitters below.
When curating this list, I determined which cozy games have a clear beginning, middle, and end, then examined the quality of their endgame content, if any. Having high-quality endgame content means that the content isn’t just repeated activities. It progresses the player or the additional story in some way.
10Spiritfarer
All Things Come To An End
Spiritfarer
What’s more appropriate about endgame content than a game all about endings? Spiritfarer has a unique approach to endgame content, allowing players to either continue helping the residents of the world or simply sail their little boat along the river and take in the beautiful sights.
There are certainly a number of tasks that players can still do after delivering the last spirit to the door, but Spiritfarer’s endgame is really all about reflection. Since the entire game is really about upgrading your ship and making it comfortable for the spirits you’re delivering to the afterlife,you end up with a bunch of leftovers from their time on your ship.
For example, I had a lot of vegetarian options on my ship for Summer, and after she left, I still had those things on board. They were a constant reminder of her, and it made me reflect on our time together and what her passing meant to me.
Players can still deliver tons of pizzas to Buck, but Spiritfarer always seems to ask the player:Isn’t it time to let go?
9Rune Factory 5
Protect The Town And Make It Flourish
Rune Factory 5
There’s a reason a lot ofpeople love the Rune Factory games, andRune Factory 5is no exception. It mixes cozy activities like farming and collecting items with RPG action and boss fights.
While Rune Factory 5 has a clear end to its story,that ending only unlocks more content for players to enjoy. For example, players can only access the Rigbarth Maze once the story ends.
That said, players should definitely hold back on exploring the Rigbarth Maze until they’ve upgraded their gear. It’s full of end-game bosses that don’t hold back their punches.
Boss fights aside, the game offers other challenges and tasks for players to complete, likefocusing on NPC relationships, raising a family, and even maxing out a player’s skills. Let’s not forget the dreaded collection challenge, either, where players need to find and collect one of everything in the game.
Start collecting anything you see as soon as the game starts to make completing the collection challenge easier in the long run.
With tons of side-quests, too, players will find themselves adding even more hours to their Rune Factory 5 playthrough from endgame content alone.
8Coral Island
A Whole Civilization To Explore And Help
Coral Island
When I first started playing Coral Island, I took it as a flashyStardew Valleyclone. Before I knew it, however, I was sinking hour after hour into it and enjoying every moment.
Coral Island has a lot of the same beats that players might expect from a cozy farming game. There’s a corporation vying for control of the island, and it’s up to the player to restore the island to its former beauty and cleanliness to keep the corporation from buying up the place.
I’m all about keeping a corporation’s sticky fingers out of quaint towns, so I blasted my way through the main story to shut them down. Despite finishing the main story, there were still tons of content left for me to explore.
Coral Island has a large world, andit doubles in size once players start to explore the underwater realm of the mermaids. From cleaning the ocean to filling up the museum with exhibitions, players will likely find themselves sinking hours and hours into Coral Island’s endgame content, too.
7Pacific Drive
Endless Exhibitions And Cozy Car Maintenance
Pacific Drive
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Pacific Drive? A cozy game?Hear me out.
Yes, Pacific Drive hasa certain element of weirdness to it. To the vanilla, it may even be considered a horror game.
Creepy elements aside, there’s an incredible sense of coziness as you tinker on your car in a garage with some chill beats playing in the background.You can even play basketball in the garage.
Originally, Pacific Drive had a very clear endgame with little to no content after completing it. That all changed when theEndless Exhibitionsupdate dropped.
Now, players can keep exploring the Zone for as long as their car can handle it. The expeditions allow players to discover more story elements of what happened in the Zone, as well as interact with a new trader that they can randomly come across while exploring.
Sinceevery run is different, players never quite know what they’re going to run into, and that includes rewards. There are new paints and other cosmetics for players to find to further customize their car and build that bond even more.
Pacific Drive is what I like to call “cozy weird,” and thanks to its Endless Exhibitions update,players can spend even more time in the Zone.
6Dragon Quest Builders 2
Tons Of Island And Tons Of Adventure
Dragon Quest Builders 2
Much like Rune Factory 5,Dragon Quest Builders 2brings together RPG action with cozy building–it’s in the name, after all. Players will find themselves entering a Minecraft-like world that’s threatened by a cult.
While leveling up your skills, you’ll also need to fight the cult (who are weirdly against cozy building for some reason) and other aggressive foes to become a master builder. Dragon Quest Builders 2 has a very clear story ending, with players defeating the cult and saving the world.
From there, the game really opens up. Players cantake their builder and start exploring the other islands to collect new materials and resources, which further unlock new building, cooking, and farming blueprints.
One of the first things I always do is enter multiplayer, so my partner and I canstart building our dream home together. With tons of new recipes to unlock,and I mean tons, players can pour hours into Dragon Quest Builders 2 long after the game has finished.
5Cozy Grove
Help Out Ghosts And Keep Restoring The World
Cozy Grove
Joining Pacific Drive in the “cozy weird” genre is Cozy Grove, where players enter a haunted forest and help out ghosts. I’m a big fan of games that visually display how a player’s actions change the world, andCozy Grove does a beautiful job of it.
Whenever a player helps out a ghost, the world around them starts to fill with color. In a way, you’re basically returning the world to life.
Now, filling the world with color aside, Cozy Grove has an interesting approach to exploration,which feeds well into its endgame content. Every time you enter the forest, it’s a completely new map.
There are new challenges, new places to explore, and new tasks to complete. In fact, it’s the daily tasks that keep the endgame content interesting and refreshing.
While players can always sail away or become a time traveler to either end the game or restart it, those who choose to remain on the island can keep helping out ghosts, decorating their home, or engaging in some of the DLC.
There area good number of hours that players can still pour into Cozy Groveeven after building their boat and completing the main story.
New Worlds Keep Coming
Fae Farmhad my partner and meby the teeth for a long time, thanks to its addictive story progression and challenges. Now, that said, the story is actually pretty short.
It’s possible to even complete the story by the second year. That may seem pretty short for a cozy game, but the good news is that Fae Farm extends playtime with tons of endgame content.
One of the clever ways that it does this is byhiding crafting recipes throughout its world. Players will have to jump and twirl their way around cliffs, rooftops, and find secret areas to discover these hidden recipe scrolls.
Chop down trees when searching an area initially because they can hide recipe scrolls behind them!
The new recipes can unlock crafting workstations, which also opens up new things to make and sell. Some are purely decorative, but since decorating your home is also enjoyable, these discoveries end up being even more exciting since they offer new interior decorating options.
Fae Farm hasn’t skimped out on DLCs, either. There are tons of new lands for players to explore after they finish the main story, witheach bringing in new story and quests or challenges for players to complete.
Shout-out to the big frog whose mouth acts as a portal to one of these lands. Nothing quite screams “fey” like being swallowed by a frog.
3Core Keeper
Use The Power Of The Core To Create New Experiences
Core Keeper
Core Keeperis still in its early days, butit really scratches the itch for anyTerrariaoropen-world sandbox fansout there. Players discover a mysterious core, which gives them special abilities, and launches them into an adventure of discovering new biomes and defeating bosses along the way.
Throughout the story, players continue to make their way from one biome to the next, bringing home all the new treasures and resources they’ve discovered. With those resources, players can decorate their caves or make new gear.
Now, while there’s a definitive end to the story, there’s still a lot of endgame discoveries for players to find. For example, there aresecret bosses,new biomes, andeven hidden armor and tool recipesscattered about the different biomes.
Even if players cleared a biome, it’s still worth coming back with upgraded gear to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Even eagle-eyed players, like myself, have likely missed hidden chambers harboring rare treasure and loot.
Core Keeper also has a hardcore mode, so even if you think you’re cake-walking through the game, changing to a different difficulty mode can make the endgame, in particular, feel challenging and rewarding.
2Sun Haven
Explore And Save Four Towns Before Diving Into Cozy Activities
Imagine the joy of discovering new townsfolk, problems to solve, and new crops to plant in Stardew Valley. Now,multiply that by fourand you have Sun Haven.
In Sun Haven, players come to the charming town of the same name and start building up a farm. They discover, however, that there isa mysterious darkness threatening the town.
The main story beat involves players conquering this darkness and saving Sun Haven. In the process, players will unlock a few other towns like Nel’Vari and Withergate.
While these towns play into the main story, they also offer a lot of content that players can complete after finishing the story. Sun Haven has a ton of NPCs scattered about its multiple towns, and all those NPCs need help in some capacity.
(They also all need romancing.)
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With another recent addition,the town of Brinestone Deeps, players have even more content to deal with after the story ends. That isn’t the end-all, either.
If you kept a close eye on the story as it was developing, you may have picked up on an underlying story beneath it. I’ll avoid spoilers, but with the team behind Sun Haven promising more content, it’s likely that the breadcrumbs trailed throughout the main story may lead to some new DLC or simply more endgame content for players to sink their teeth into.
Either way, I’m certainly excited to see what’s in store for Sun Haven’s post-story future.
1Stardew Valley
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Stardew Valley
Stardew Valleyput cozy games on the map, and there’s no question that it basically introduced the idea of endgame content, too. After players arrive in Pelican Town, they can start setting up their farm and helping out the locals.
However, the real story involves JojaMart and the player’s decision on how to handle it.
The story ends with players either kicking JojaMart out of the town or succumbing to corporate greed and shutting down local businesses. Even after this major story point, Stardew has a ton of post-story content for players to enjoy.
It’s one of the many reasons why Stardew has such an enduring legacy.
From taking part in festivals, getting married, and even going to an island andstarting a whole new farm, there have always been a ton of things to do. That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the mods out there, too, that bring even more content to the game.
Now, as a Stardew Valley fanatic, I like to think that I’ve done all there is to do in the game. I’m often wrong.
There are so manyhidden interactions, cutscenes, and other secret discoveriesin the game that I feel like I can play this game for the next few years andstill find something new. Add in those mods I mentioned before, which can often bring in new romances, new towns, and just more content, and this game really becomes a home away from home.
You’ll never want to leave Pelican Town.
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Cozy games are great, but cozy games with endless things to collect? Even better. From feathers to fish, these are the ultimate collection-heavy games
