48) Wanderstop (2025)

After spending the better part of a decade creating The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide, writer and director Davey Wreden began to experience what most creators do when they put their heart and soul into their work: burnout. Seeing as how his previous works blurred the line between commercial narrative and personal experiences, challenging the kinds of stories that can only be told in the medium of video games, it should come as no surprise that he and his team funneled these feelings into their next project. Wanderstop is, on the surface, yet another cozy simulation game that sees players take on the role of running a tea shop, but subverts the expected norms of said genre to make a rather profound message.

We start with the backstory and premise of our narrative, told in stunningly beautiful artwork with our protagonist, Alta, narrating. Alta had spent her life training tirelessly, rapidly rising in ranks as an undefeated fighter. She was on top of the world, doing what she loved and being damn good at it, until she found herself on the receiving end of a loss. Baffled but undeterred, she doubled down, training harder, only to find herself losing once again. Her worldview shaken, she does what anyone would do in her situation, running into a magical forest in search of a legendary warrior to train her. As she runs headlong into the woods, she finds herself slowing down, her sword heavy in her hands until it finally becomes too much for her to carry. Trudging onward, she soon collapses in the forest, eventually awakening on a bench next to a gentle giant she comes to know as Boro.

Boro, a humble and jovial man, found Alta in the woods and brought her to the bench that overlooks a small forest clearing, at the center of which is Boro's tea shop. He explains that the forest, magical in nature, has a way of guiding travelers where they need to be, even if they don't realize where that is themselves. Hearing Alta's story, he urges her to take a break, at least until she can once again lift her sword, and asks her to brew him a cup of tea. This begins what will become, at least for a time, our gameplay loop. We're instructed on how to make tea and how to grow and harvest ingredients. At this point, despite her protestations, Alta begins work at the tea shop. As with any cozy sim game, you're free to do as you wish and go at your own pace. However, instead of having a silent protagonist who simply goes with the flow, Alta is very outspoken, somewhat rude and dismissive, and demands to be given concrete objectives, much to the bafflement of Boro.

As we continue, we get to meet various customers who have odd and concerning issues who will ask for either extremely vague drinks, or exceedingly specific ones. Alta, not realizing the type of game she's in, finds herself increasingly frustrated at not being able to flat out solve problems and not having a stated goal. Aside from serving customers, we can grow different fruits, clear out piles of leaves, or brew a cup of tea for ourselves. Each ingredient has specific traits, such as the obvious flavor and color, but also in how they make someone feel. Though never a goal, each cup of tea we brew for Alta sees her sit back and reflect on her past, giving us a bit more insight into who she is. These moments, as well as the major story beats, are beautifully voiced by Kimberly Woods, have a sort of raw emotion to them that really help to flesh out Alta as a character.

At certain points, we find that the small forest clearing changes, both in appearance and in layout. As such, most of the things you do to customize the clearing get undone, and you must start with a new clean slate. While at first a baffling choice for this type of game, it helps tie into the narrative in a way that is unique to video games. The overarching theme of the story is to slow down, enjoy life, and be kind to yourself, and much like the world seems to do for Alta, so to does the game force this concept onto us, the players. It made me realize that, at some point, any cozy sim game becomes less about enjoying the experience and more about "beating" the game, which is Alta is hellbent on doing. This focus on winning, the strive for perfection, is antithetical to the intended experience, and Wanderstop does an amazing job of holding a mirror up to that.

Wanderstop is a phenomenal experience that carries a deep, personal message. It uses the medium of video games, and the language inherent to the medium, to subvert expectations and uses the guise of a cozy simulation to question the how and why we play the games we do. This extends so far as the achievements present in the game, which have vague, nonsense descriptions and no clear instructions on how to get them. That is the entire point. Too often, we find ourselves forgetting the primary reason we play games in order to check off boxes on an imaginary bingo card. Wanderstop, at every turn, reaffirms to the player and to Alta that sometimes we need to stop, take a breath, and enjoy the moment.