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

Alexander Vandewalle's paper argues that cozy historical video games, including titles with mythological content, constitute a distinct mode of "doing" history that departs from the dominant conventions of historical gaming. Where historical games are often characterized by violence, conquest, technological progression, cinematic realism, and serious educational use, the author contends that cozy titles such as Tiny Glade, REKA, Valheim, Dawn of Defiance, and Manor Lords foreground building, nature, collectivity, and non-photorealist aesthetics while largely removing combat and stressful mechanics. The paper's central thesis is that this combination produces an affective form of historical engagement, which the author terms "cozy history," in which players are emotionally invested in a self-constructed presence within a loosely defined past rather than in an authentic reconstruction of a specific region or era.

The argument rests on a conceptual and comparative analysis rather than empirical measurement. The author draws on the existing cozy game literature, including work by Waszkiewicz, Bódi, Pinder, and Smith, and on historical game studies scholarship concerning violence, empire, and visual authenticity. Several examples are offered as evidence, and the paper notes that even historically dense open-world games such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been approached in cozy ways by players, as reflected in community discussion. The study does not report survey data, sample sizes, or quantitative findings.

In terms of scope, the paper concentrates on a recent wave of titles, with examples spanning roughly 2016 to 2024, and draws primarily on examples from European and Scandinavian, Slavic, Greek, and medieval settings. It is presented as a DiGRA 2025 extended abstract, and its main contribution is to propose a framework for understanding how cozy aesthetics and mechanics reshape historical representation and player engagement.