Cozy History? Frameworks, Contrasts, and Affect in CozyHistorical Video Games

The field of historical game studies has often argued that games set in historical periods and settings are characterized by their high reliance on violence (Serrano Lozano 2020), conquest and empire-building (Lowe 2009, 68), resource management (Chapman 2016, 126), and technological progression (Flegler 2020).Additionally, many historical games employ cinematic aesthetics to offer a seemingly photorealistic or 'authentic' image of the past (Campbell 2008; Clare 2021; Machado 2020).Many of these games are also often used in pedagogical contexts (e.g., McCall 2011/2023).While there are, naturally, many individual exceptions to this rather generalizing description of historical games, it remains legitimate to consider some of the broad strokes of history in games as predicated on violence, empires, aspired visual authenticity, and its potentially 'serious' educational application.Nevertheless, there are specific genres of historical games which, as a whole, seem to challenge the dominant languages of history in games.In this presentation, I focus on a recent wave of cozy games with historical inspirations (by extension, I also include several titles with mythological content), and I explore how these cozy games present new frameworks of historical engagement or, in other words, of 'doing' history.Cozy games are games marked by "safety, abundance, and softness" (Short et al. 2018)terms now rephrased as "ludic", "narrative" and "visual safety" (Waszkiewicz 2024, 112) -and conventionally feature non-hyperkinetic action, stylized aesthetics, cute characters, and a lack of potentially stressful game elements (e.g., fast countdowns, boss fights).Prototypical examples include Stardew Valley (2016, ConcernedApe), A Short Hike (2019, Robinson-Yu) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020, Nintendo EPD).They have recently gained large popularity in game studies, particularly given an extensive series of articles in Replay: The Polish Journal of Game Studies.At the intersection of historical and cozy games lie titles such as Tiny Glade (2024, Pounce Light), a 'diorama builder' where players create medieval castles and cottages in cutesy aesthetics and natural environments.In the Slavic mythology-inspired REKA