Winter Burrow - Switch Review

Survival games seem all the rage nowadays, and it seems as though many have gone down similar routes. But along came Winter Burrow, a cosy approach where you play as a mouse on a journey to return home in order to restore their childhood burrow. You’ll brave the harsh cold winter while you explore, gather resources, and craft and upgrade your arsenal to delve further into the snowy wilderness.

The Good

One look at Winter Burrow and you can see how cute and inviting it is. It’s a page of a children’s picture book brought to life, with human-like mice who walk and talk and have families, as well as the colourful yet earthy colour usage. Art is always the first thing that draws us into games; it’s the first thing we see (literally). Quite often, I found myself simply marvelling at what I was looking at, all the way down to its finer details. It’s just so cute!

The plot is a surprisingly sombre one, primarily focusing on how unforgiving life can be. With the protagonist’s parents having passed away due to overwork, they set off to find their childhood burrow and to be reunited with their aunt. But as the city was unforgiving, so too is nature itself. As soon as you begin to feel comfortable and on the right track, the story will take a sharp turn, proving that each day can be a struggle for survival – not just for you.

TL;DR

• Picturesque art
• A surprisingly poignant plot

The Bad

The absence of a map simply makes Winter Burrow a burden to get through. While I can understand the concept of a survival game wanting to throw you into the wilderness and a map would be considered a luxury, as the game opens up and each area looks almost identical, it all feels tedious and needlessly obtuse. Couple this with its hunger, sleep and warmth metres to keep an eye on, and there’s nothing worse than dying, not because you came unprepared, but because you couldn’t remember how to get back. What’s worse is that players on Steam asked the question of a map to the developers over a year ago, and they said they were working on it. So, what happened?

One of the game’s key selling points is the ability to craft furniture and decorate your burrow. Cute, right? The unfortunate part is that it all feels very surface-level and doesn’t offer anything new; or rather, it barely scratches the surface of most home decorator simulations. Just play Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Happy Home Paradise update – you’ll have a much better time.

And lastly, while this may not be a concern for everyone, I found the HUD to be very intrusive. What I mean by this is that when exploring and doing, well, anything really, there are a lot of menus and icons all over the screen. While the UI design is certainly something the team should be proud of, it doesn’t need to take up 30% of the entire screen, that’s for sure.

TL;DR

• A lack of a map is unforgivable.
• Lacklustre home design gameplay
• Over-encompassing HUD

Final Score: 5/10

Aside from the art, there’s nothing particularly memorable about Winter Burrow. Whenever I came across something new, I would think to myself, “Oh, it’s like this game… but on a surface level”. It brings nothing to the survival genre, and if it wasn’t for its art, I don’t think we’d be talking about it as much as people are.

Thank you for checking out our Winter Burrow Switch review, thank you to Noodlecake for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Bobby Jack
• Jack Caven
• Nintendo Maniacs
• RedHero