Stop Doomscrolling And Check Out These Five Relaxing Games

Image: Futurlab / Square Enix

We don’t need to mince words here: Stardew Valley is the de facto cozy relaxing game of the generation. And you know what’s pretty great about that? The console and mobile versions of Stardew Valley just received the 1.6 update that introduced a million changes that fans have explicitly asked for over the years, as well as fresh content by way of new events and dialogue. That’s right, Stardew Valley is somehow still growing all these years later, and it’s now arguably in the best spot it’s ever been across every platform it’s available on. It has never been a better time to hide away by moving to a small town, inheriting your grandfather’s farm, and hitting on some cute locals.

There are a lot of things going on in the world that I have zero control over, but I can clean my own home, and that’s often enough for me. For years, I took for granted the euphoria of a clean space I could call my own, as well as the actual act of cleaning itself. I only really learned to appreciate it when PowerWash Simulator finally released onto Game Pass, allowing me to fly my freak flag and clean up the most ridiculously unclean town I’ve ever seen.

I can’t do much about the things going on in the world right now. I’ve done my part already, despite how badly I want to clean up the messes that others keep making. But I can’t, and it’s important to know when to take care of others, and when to take care of myself. And when I finally make the call to do a little something for me, it often means turning off the lights, crawling into bed, throwing on some relaxing music, and powerwashing my troubles away. Let this be a balm for your soul like it has for me.

Okay, so I understand that I screamed at you all to ditch big RPGs that charge you with making huge decisions, so why not take on an even bigger one that doesn’t ask you to do any such thing? Welcome to Final Fantasy XIV Online, the feel-good casual MMO that literally all of your friends are playing. Yes, even that one. They may not be talking to you about it, but they definitely log in to run their daily roulettes under the cover of night.

Sometimes you need to disappear into another world, take up the cause and fights of other characters rather than your own, and work it out in an epic decade-long campaign. But the great thing about FFXIV–and this is a staple of most MMOs if we’re being entirely honest–is how many supplementary things there are to do to immerse yourself in the world beyond the main story quest. Do you want to earn some titles and cute minions? Do literally anything else on offer, like become a master crafter, or fisher. There are multiple jobs that you can take on that have nothing to do with combat, dungeons, trials, or anything remotely like that. You can lock in to the most idle game content ever and spend your hours relaxing, casting a line, and chatting with friends in a Discord call. Take it from one of said friends who has been on that call, my friends seemed utterly blissed out, and that could (and perhaps should) be you, too.

Music is how I most often come down. The minute I pop my overpriced earphones into my head and put on my messy, uncurated playlist of liked songs, my worries wash away. Even now, I’m listening to Phoebe Bridgers and Connor Oberst’s joint record Better Oblivion Community Center to simultaneously listen to a record I’ve meant to throw on for some time now, put on something folk-adjacent to relax the nerves, and motivate me to write today. I’m chill as fuck now. And you can be too, if you just give yourself over to music.

Enter Tetris Effect, the dreamiest iteration of the otherwise most stressful game ever. Tetris Effect doesn’t just set the whole thing to relaxing house music with lyrics about connectedness between all living things: it transforms Tetris into a completely different experience. Similar to the effect music has on me in my real life, it exposes the rhythm of all things. There’s an ebb and flow to Tetris Effect that I could never see in other incarnations of the game. There’s a give and take, and I learned to appreciate it, and even make it work for me. I came to peace with the things I could and couldn’t do, and became better at seizing opportunities to make triumphant and huge plays. I learned to take my time and pick my moments, and by internalizing that, I made peace with some part of myself that rarely enjoyed it.

Tetris Effect actually gave me that, but it’s also just a thoroughly relaxing version of Tetris set to trippy visuals and the aforementioned house music with lyrics about connectedness. If what you really need is a semblance of unity, perhaps in the face of overwhelming dread and an existential threat, there are few experiences that can soothe you like Tetris Effect.

My Sims girlies have always been ahead of the curve on this one, if I’m being totally honest. These games aren’t for me, but I can understand how they could be for others. Hell, life has gone sideways a million different ways, and a game enabling me to be delulu, remake myself, and act out my fantasies sounds like a wonderful gift.

I think it’s good that we all have something that we can have control over that routinely brings us some bit of joy or peace of mind. Sims is the blueprint, in this regard; the original feel- good game to relax withto and drown out the noise of the world with. The SiIms 4, like the rest of the series before it, is an exercise in complete and selfish control, a luxury so many of us are often denied, and risk having taken away from us at numerous disappointing junctures.

I don’t know about you all, but I could stand to pull a bit of a disappearing act right now. The Final Fantasy XIV Online icon on my desktop is looking mighty tempting, and while I’ve resisted it for some time now, maybe I owe it to myself to go somewhere better. At least, until the real world begins resembling my greatest fantasies a bit more. Anything but this, y’know?