Winter Burrow

The House of Mouse.

Winter in the wilderness is harsh and unforgiving. Being caught unprepared can be a dire sentence. However, If you are crafty and organized, you can make a life surviving off the land. Look hard enough and you can build what is needed for shelter, weave clothing, forage for food, and once in a while even come together for some good company for a spell. Even the resident animals of the forest can survive under the right circumstances and knowledgeable skills. It is with one of these smallest of said critters that the story of Winter Burrow is centered on.

The game begins with a note of sadness and our main character, a small but hopeful mouse, has returned to their long empty and abandoned family home. The once cozy and love-filled tree trunk house has fallen into disrepair and it seems you have a lot to do in order to survive the season. If your trails have taught you anything, it is that you are more than ready to get started.

On your adventure, you will assist and befriend a bunch of different critters that would normally be quite removed from each other and incompatible. However, your kindness perseveres and in some cases you are able to draw them out of their shell and discover their stories. Quite often, their tales are fraught with matters of family and loss. You do your best to assist them, sometimes finding the conclusion to their plight you don't initially expect but know is needed none the less.

Visually, Winter Burrow is an absolute whimsical feast for the eyes. The game opens like a loving storybook showing a brief introduction of our tiny main character’s life leading into the game. Every scene is hand drawn beauty and you can feel the artist's care and attention in every detail. From fur to bark to even the insects that creep across the forest floor, you notice a warmth of life in every movement. The color palette is expertly chosen to lend the cadence of a true wintery forest environment. The pairing of the wonderful story telling creates a world you really start to feel attached to and I feel as though the developers created something truly exceptional.

The gameplay is comfortably simple. Single button prompts to swing your tools, collect what falls and an easy and quick toolbar to switch between whatever is needed at the moment. If you are mining a rock and are approached by an aggressive ant, all it takes is a simple click of a shoulder button to switch back to your axe and fight back. Even the combat itself is crafted around single button presses and responsive movement that allows for fast dodging of incoming attacks. The hit boxes on enemies, even more aparant on the larger foes like the spiders, can sometimes make contact a little tricky and take a bit longer than normal. After a while and after many encounters around nearly every corner, it can begin to feel a bit repetitive and the challenge comes from finding patience to persevere or simply run around and away from the oncoming threat.

However, the combat is a small part of the game, the bulk of which is surviving the winter elements themselves and crafting. You will craft everything you need using resources gathered all around the forest. Everything from tools to resources, warm clothing, to food and even herbal teas that help warm you up when you get caught out in the cold longer than you expected. You can also build many different types of household furniture to spruce up your burrow and give your burrow a truly welcoming home to return to. 

Where the furniture is purely for cozy aesthetics, there are upgradeable aspects when it comes to your equipable gear. You'll eventually be able to weave warmer clothing that helps you track through the nasty weather longer, build bigger packs to carry more things and also craft better tools to gather tougher materials or get past previously impassible barriers. These plans are unlockable as task rewards for helping out your other animal friends that you meet. 

This to me was a nice story-driven way of gently guiding you through the process rather than just clinically providing it as a system addition by way of lists. Another nice point to mention is that there is the option of highlighting a particular crafting plan or food recipe so that you can easily checklist the materials and ingredients you need. This saves you from scrambling to remember what it was you were doing or having to keep notes yourself. As someone who gets easily distracted by tasks and random occurrences, this was a meaningful addition.

Now that we've mentioned meaningful additions, we should talk about the Winter Solstice update. Not long after the game's initial release, Pine Creek Games gifted us with the Winter Solstice update, even making it completely free. This saw the fixing of a few pesky bugs, general quality of life updates, added a bunch of new content in the form of new requests and loads of new things to craft and cook. The star of all of these was arguably the introduction of the map. Before this, there was no tangible way to pinpoint where you were going. You needed to rely heavily on your sense of observation to keep track of where you had and hadn't been. You can use paw prints in the snow, distinguishable landmarks present in each of the unique areas within the woods, and be mindful of directions traveled and headed. 

This became a daunting task when you were already burdened with what needed to be done, or even the distraction of say a massive spider popping out of the bushes had the tendency to derail any tracks you were concentrating on. I myself would become lost to the point where the bulk of my time was spent wandering aimlessly and burning through my stock of provisions trying to find my way home. 

While the map they added wasn't what is the common fare in many other games (containing bright tags and flashing cursors), it was the perfect artistic fit for the hand drawn storybook quality game. It is a basic map drawn in a charming charcoal sketched style and gives you just enough guidance that shows you the placement of each area without leading you by the hand and removing the choice design of exploration joy that they were originally going for.

All this being said, let's chat about what's behind the curtain; the mechanical performance of the game itself. I had the pleasure of playing through the game on both the Xbox Series X and the Nintendo switch. Both versions operate quite smoothly with very little to no frame stutters even when moving from rest to action. Visuals are crisp and colors are nice and clean which compliment and elevate the whimsical art style. 

Controls are responsive and the only real down side is that it operates on frame by frame animation. Meaning, for example, if you are fighting, let's say a spider, and you both swing at the same time, you will have to wait for the animation of the weapon swing to finish before you can dodge the spider's attack. You can't cancel out and press the direction to dodge. If you do, it won't register and you will take the damage. As long as you are mindful of this and strategic in noticing patterns, this can often become a moot point. 

Where the Xbox and Switch versions differ, is the Switch version experiences strange and sluggish load times when selecting menu options on the start screen, pausing the game, or entering the storage menu in your home. Other than that, graphically and performance wise, there are ultimately not a lot of functional differences between versions, other than perhaps a few hardly noticeable frame rate dips.

On the plus side of things, Winter Burrow is a beautiful storybook-like experience that is filled with a handful of endearing animal characters that each have their own lives and tales. It is expertly written and functions rather well no matter what you choose to play it on. It has a short run time which doesn't overstay its welcome, but still feels packed with things to do and create like any of the longer cozy games that can be similar. The only drawbacks are how repetitive the action, crafting and task lists can become due to control simplicity. This can, at times, make it feel a bit grindy between story pieces. All in all, the pros far outweigh the cons and I personally never really got bored.

In conclusion, my dear friends, if you are in the mood for a cozy gaming experience that will stir your heart, please pick up Winter Burrow! You will be as heartily glad you did as much as I was.

Developer - Pine Creek Games.
Publisher - Noodlecake Studios.
Released - November 12th, 2025.
Available On - Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PC.
Rated - (E 10+) - Fantasy Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S.
Review Access - A review code for Winter Burrow was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.