Winter Burrow is described as a cosy woodland survival game about a mouse returning home to restore his childhood burrow. Now, I will preface this by saying that this is a genre of game that I love. Having played it from start to finish and then finding the Winter Solstice update so soon after felt like quite the treat. Be warned, this review contains spoilers!
The game does portray itself as ‘cosy’ but I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are areas which may bother a sensitive child. As a rough guide; when being introduced to your mouse character you are told that its parents died after being worked to death trying to save up for tickets to get home, your aunt will be snatched away by an owl and remain close to death for a good portion of the game and you will be tasked with finding a lost hedgehog that is actually dead and you have to go and report this to its partner. There is nothing gruesome and the art style and sweet nature of all of the woodland creatures softens these aspects brilliantly but it seemed wise to make sure you were ready to embrace this not quite so cosy side. When done, you are set to embark on the game itself.
As with all good games of this ilk, you are instantly immersed in your environment. Whilst you are guided to make sure you know the base skills of how to gather basic resources, repair items and cook food, it also highlights just how vulnerable your mouse character is. As soon as you leave the safety of your burrow you are met with a pretty snowy scene, your mouse in basic jumper is looking cute…..and freezing! This environmental factor is brilliant as it emphasises the real need you have to achieve everything at speed in those early days until you have progressed far enough so as to unlock warmer clothes. A very nice detail is that whilst your mouse loses body heat during the day, it loses it even quicker at night, adding another touch of realism to the game devs thinking. In essence, you cannot go far from your burrow during the day and even less of a distance at night.
Initially, the inability to take my mouse very far hid the fact that at the game’s release, there was no map. For a while this did make navigating the maze-like series of screens, especially during a snow storm when visibility was hampered, rather tricky. Thankfully this feedback was taken on board and with the release of the Winter Solstice update a map of sorts was created. It does not show the exact location of your mouse or characters you have encountered but it does highlight the region you are in which tends to be quite sufficient.
As it is a survival game, gathering resources to survive should be key. I love the wide range of natural resources that our mouse is able to find and grow but it does not feel as though the game yet rewards you for doing so, leaving a temptation to only harvest those things required to fulfil the story arcs of the woodland characters we encounter. I went into the game really wanting to collect more and regularly returned to the burrow with a full inventory but was deterred in the end by the storage system. Every single storage unit you make in your burrow shows everything that you own. You cannot have one chest for wood and another for food. Even the basket for fibres you can build holds everything! This means you end up spending an inordinate amount of time scrolling up and down an ever-growing list of items you have stored, trying to either find them or put them in an order. Having more defined storage would make a massive difference and allow organisation of the burrow. Maybe not only separate storage chests but even enabling the wardrobes we are encouraged to build capable of taking the clothes that become obsolete and a way of effectively binning those things we no longer want would help.
Following on from these thoughts is the list of recipes you can use at the stove to create delicacies for your mouse. It is a luscious list and the foods have a variety of uses – different foods can quell a different percentage of hunger, health and warmth. I think here the delights of these foods will come for those among us who enjoy collecting and making everything just because we can, rather than because we must. Realistically, you can never be gone away from your burrow long enough to require more than a few warming cups of tea and a bit of cooked beetle will see you right as rain if you fall out with an enemy on your travels. I would also mention that there is little difficulty in acquiring food and I think something may have gone awry with beechnuts as on one loop around the tree stump that is my burrow, I picked up 168 of them! My mouse lived royally on beechnut biscuits for most of the series I recorded.
The story arc involves you finding characters and then completing a series of quests for them. They are sweet woodland creatures and when in proximity to them they have a background music played to almost signal your arrival with them. I did enjoy their quirky characters, especially Gnawtusk Squirrel, but did find humour in that some of the speech dialogue between my mouse character and them went a tad awry. It is possible to have one conversation with Willow Mole who welcomes you 3 times and will request hazelnuts which you can be holding, will ask if you have them, only for your mouse to lie and say it doesn’t! They also have no knowledge of the weather and on a bright winter’s day will comment on you surviving the blizzard-like conditions to reach them and yet not say a word when your mouse can barely see the paw in front of its face! These things do not detract from the gameplay, they just made me smile.
The game designer has created many sets of furniture that can be obtained and then built by your mouse, often given as rewards for fulfilling requests. As the burrow is only small (2 rooms and a basement to grow mushrooms), there isn’t much room for interior design and chairs made out of every wood and stone that features in the game seems excessive to me. Perhaps as time goes on it will be possible to access the homes of other creatures or to reach other buildings where more furniture is required. In which case, I will be gathering silk from spiders and be ready to make rugs!
I had worried when I initially finished the game that I would not have cause to return to it as all quests were complete, so it was amazing to find an update released so soon afterwards. I just wished it had had more of a conclusive ending as it seemed a little anti-climactic. However, the existence of the DLC so soon after release has left me intrigued to see what else the developer may have in store for us. I’m sure it won’t be long before a return to the woodland and its inhabitants will be essential!
A full playthrough of the game and the Winter Solstice DLC is available to watch here on my YouTube channel.