In a recent study, it was determined that Stardew Valley is the best game for reducing stress. It narrowly beat the likes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and A Short Hike to the top spot, securing a ‘cosy score’ of 9.4 out of 10.
Stardew Valley was released in 2016, and since it dropped, it has been maintained by a solo developer – ConcernedApe – who pours nothing but passion into upkeeping and evolving what is officially the cosiest farming game ever made.
It’s Official
The study, which was completed by Northerner, aimed to determine the best game for reducing stress.
It looked at 20 games, pulling together and aggregating their review scores from a variety of sources, including Metacritic, OpenCritic, and SteamDB. There was a network of preliminary criteria each game had to hit to be considered ‘cosy’ in the first place, of course.
The full list of games was topped by Stardew Valley, but it also featured the likes of Coral Island, Disney Dreamlight Valley, New Pokémon Snap, and Donut County. At the bottom of the table sat Cozy Grove with a score of just 3.7 out of 10, which was paltry compared to Stardew Valley’s near-perfect score.
Stardew Valley is nothing short of monumental. It’s one of the best-rated games on Steam, boasting an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ score based on almost 700,000 reviews. In a number, 97.6% of those reviews are regarded as positive. It’s only pipped to the top spot on Steam by Portal 2, which has 97.7% positive ratings.
It comes down to the wire between these games.
In third place sits People Playground with 97.4% positive reviews.
As the winter months roll in, people hunt far and wide for cosy, warming games to play – and Stardew Valley is officially the pick of the bunch.
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For more GPlayr coverage, check out the news that PlayStation has added new celebratory themes to PS5