It has been an incredibly busy year for Xbox Game Pass, and it can be awfully difficult to choose which included game you should play next. So, I'm back with another spotlight for one of the smaller gems on Game Pass that I wholeheartedly recommend.
This is Winter Burrow, a short, cozy survival game following the adventures of a young mouse as they return to their old familial home and learn to survive the harsh, endless winter of the forest.
Finding friends hidden in the snow
You're a mouse, and you were raised in the forest by your parents and aunt. You loved the wilderness and were slowly learning to fend for yourself when the winters began to grow longer and harsher. Desperate to keep you safe, your parents fled with you to the city, leaving their burrow behind.
Poor living conditions and dangerous jobs whittled your parents down to nothing in the following years, however, and in the end, you were alone, left with nothing but a burning desire to return to the winter-enclosed forest of your childhood and the aunt who never departed it.
That's the basic premise behind Winter Burrow, an ambling survival adventure that tasks you with restoring your familial home while reconnecting with your aunt, learning to survive, and making some new friends along the way.
Gameplay-wise, Winter Burrow is straightforward. There are multiple semi-open areas to explore, each with unique resources, secrets, and creatures to scavenge, discover, and battle. You can use everything you collect or find to repair structures, build furniture, craft tools and items, and cook recipes.
You need to keep a close eye on your health, hunger, stamina, and especially your warmth — just being outside becomes dangerous over time, and the time of day, weather effects, and areas can affect how quickly you succumb to the cold. That constant threat puts a persistent timer on every adventure, but Winter Burrow is hardly an unforgivingly challenging survival game.
Winter Burrow can be challenging in that it doesn't hold your hand, but I'd never describe it as difficult in general.
The greatest challenge comes not from the cold or various creatures you may have to battle, but from simply learning how to progress. There are no maps or objective markers; you need to become familiar with each area, especially as you discover other animals living in the forest that need your help. Simply paying attention to the footprints you left behind during previous adventures can be a massive help.
It's easy to become uncertain at times about how you're supposed to find something specific, be it resources, secrets, or even missing friends and family. I actually enjoyed this approach to game design, though, especially when Winter Burrow's scavenging, crafting, and combat mechanics are incredibly simple to understand.
A little too short, but still a Game Pass gem
As temperatures decline and reasons to go outside dwindle, Winter Burrow has offered me a handful of hours of peace and relaxation while wrapped in a cocoon of fuzzy blankets. It really embodies the "cozy survival" description, but the journey is rather short-lived.
Rebuilding your burrow, reuniting with your family, making new friends, and assisting everyone you've met while upgrading your gear and decorating your home doesn't take quite as long as I would've liked. I 100% the game and all its achievements in less than 10 hours, highlighting Winter Burrow's general lack of depth.
You're given lots of recipes for furniture, but little reason to actually go out of your way to craft any of it. You can technically customize your mouse, but really just by going up to one of the next three tiers of clothing. Most of your "reason" to play Winter Burrow is simply to explore and progress through each supporting character's unique questline (giving you five stories in total).
Winter Burrow ends quite abruptly, too, launching into the credits immediately following an anticlimactic conversation with your aunt. Honestly, I just wanted a little more from Winter Burrow — mostly, more depth to the gameplay that would make me want to keep revisiting even after the story is over.
Still, I really enjoyed my time with Winter Burrow. Developer Pine Creek Games truly nailed this aesthetic, and the narrative is sweet and often sorrowful — but ultimately heartwarming. If you're interested, Winter Burrow is now available across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, and gaming handhelds, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and (of course) Xbox Game Pass.
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