'7 Days to Die' meets 'Animal Crossing': This wholesome survival game for Xbox and PC has some interesting inspiration

Games like The Long Dark and Frostpunk have pit players against the forces of brutal cold and blinding snow. While the cold in Pine Creek Games’ upcoming title, Winter Burrow, is no less of a danger than it is in dystopian games, it is juxtaposed with feelings of coziness and comfort. “Cozy and survival?” said Benjamin Salqvist, CEO and Creative Director at Pine Creek Games, “…we believe that contrast enhances each other and creates interesting gameplay experiences.”

Salqvist surprisingly credits the zombie survival game 7 Days to Die as the leading inspiration for Winter Burrow. In a blog post about Winter Burrows on Xbox Wire, Salqvist wrote, “I imagined a game that was something like [7 Days to Die], but with squirrels, hedgehogs, moles, and mice crawling in the trees and digging in the ground, rather than humans surviving a zombie apocalypse.”

A human story told through the eyes of a mouse

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Winter Burrow may be the tale of a little mouse surrounded by all the critters of the woods, but the story is unapologetically human. The mouse’s family moves from the burrow to the city to forge a better life. The family finds nothing but hard work and sorrow, however. After the little mouse’s parents pass, it sets off back to its childhood home, only to return to a burrow in ruin and disrepair.

That’s where you come in, as you become the little mouse venturing out into the cold wilderness looking for the resources you need to make the burrow feel like home again. From tiny twigs to blades of grass, you slowly rebuild your childhood home, decorating as you go. Meanwhile, the tiny resources you collect from the forest floor can also be used for everything from knitting warmer sweaters and hats to rebuilding bridges to help the other forest folk around you.

Fellow mice offer the ability to trade, and squirrels and moles can provide knowledge and tools. Not every critter in the forest is helpful, though. The dreaded insect wildlife can make your adventures outside the burrow a bit more risky. How you handle that risk is up to you, though. Hide until the threats pass, or put on your bravest knit hat and whack the dastardly beetles with your homemade axe. Should the cold and bugs ruin your wintry adventure, however, you’ll simply faint and reawaken in the morning back at home in the safety and comfort of your bed.

“Thematically, we wanted the game to mainly revolve around the contrast between safety and danger. That feeling of being under a warm blanket when it’s raining or snowing outside. We wanted to explore this feeling and the connection between the safe warm burrow and a cold harsh wilderness.” wrote Salqvist.

At least you can bake a pie to soothe the wounds of a failed excursion.

Inspiration from games, art, and literature

While 7 Days to Die may have served as the inspiration for Winter Burrow’s survival mechanics, the decision to create a 2D isometric forest for the mouse came from a combination of Don’t Starve and Animal Crossing. Even the game’s hand-drawn ink-lined comic book aesthetic was inspired by David Peterson’s comic Mouse Guard.

What comes of that is a more approachable take on the often cruel survival genre (as players do not lose their progress upon fainting) and a slight twist to the wholesome life-sim genre that, for some, can feel just a bit too tame. It wasn’t always that way, however. According to Salqvist, the team at Pine Creek Games had to try out different directions for Winter Burrow before the game found its path. “…Even though they seem like detours today, we are happy that we tried them out because it helped us understand the game and its core vision better.”

Even with its 2025 release window narrowing in, Winter Burrow continues to change. Pine Creek Games recently announced that the playable mouse character had received a brand-new look. The updated design was introduced so that the mouse would match the cozy, storybook feel of the game a little more closely. A new logo and promotional art for the game were also recently revealed.

Pine Creek Games has partnered with Noodlecake to publish Winter Burrow on Xbox and Xbox PC. “When we started showing the game to Noodlecake and Xbox for the first time, they immediately understood what we were doing. They have supported us from the start and gave us confidence to believe in the game and what we were making. A big ‘Thank you’ goes in their direction,” says Salqvest.

The wholesome survival life-sim is supported by Xbox Play Anywhere, which allows players to purchase the game once on Xbox consoles or Xbox PC and enjoy the game on all Xbox platforms. Yes, that includes the newly announced ROG Xbox Ally handheld. Winter Burrow is also launching day one on Game Pass for Xbox and PC. While you wait, a demo is available on Steam.