While Stardew Valley didn’t start the cozy game genre, the success of the 2016 farming sim kicked off a wave of imitations and homages as developers realized the potential of games with a more chill vibe. In the eight years since that explosion of coziness, many of the resulting cozy games stay frustratingly close to the mechanics and limitations of Stardew Valley, but two games featured at this weekend’s Summer Game Fest point toward a new kind of subversion that the genre desperately needs.
