Everybody loves the soothing rhythms of a comfort game, and the cozy game genre — which is less of a genre and more of a mood, really — has some of the best comfort games of all: games in which you tend crops, brew beverages, and stock bookshops. The problem with cozy games, though, is that their stories are sometimes excessively pleasant, or barely there at all.
One cozy game stands out for its powerful storytelling, though. More remarkably, the game achieves this without a single cutscene or line of dialogue, and packs a huge emotional wallop purely through the simple interactions of its stress-free gameplay. Even better, you can play the whole thing in one go. It’s called Unpacking.
Unpacking is a deceptively moving four-hour masterpiece
Unpacking, a 2021 indie game by the developer Witch Beam, is literally a game about unpacking. You’ve moved into a new room or place, and you open boxes and unpack their contents, finding a home for each item on a shelf, on a hanger, in a drawer. That’s it. The graphics are simple, crisp, beautifully observed pixel art. When you finish unpacking a box, it folds up and disappears with a deeply satisfying pop. It’s so soothing!
This gameplay is surprisingly absorbing; there’s no time limit or challenge, really, but there’s gentle puzzle-solving involved in making sure you find room for every object in an appropriate spot. You can also express yourself, decorating and organizing each room to your liking.
While you’re doing this, Unpacking‘s story sneaks up on you. The game is told in eight chapters, starting in 1997 and ending in 2018. To begin with, you’re organizing a kids’ room, filling it with toys. Later, there’s a college dorm room, a first apartment, then another shared with a boyfriend. You start to pick up the changes and details of the unnamed protagonist’s life through her possessions: the ones she keeps, the ones she doesn’t, the ones that say something about her — games and posters and books and clothing, bathroom toiletries and kitchen implements.
There’s a subtle context to be gleaned from each level by filling in the blanks. What can you see from the window? Do the apartment and the neighborhood seem nice? What prompted this latest move? Where’s she at in her life? Does she have too much stuff, or too little? Who else lives here, and what can we learn about them from their stuff?
It’s such an unusual and effective way to tell a classic coming-of-age story about a person finding where they truly belong. Through the gentle friction in the gameplay and the character and charm of the objects, you feel a person change, adapt, and grow, and feel time passing and the world moving on. It’s absolutely beautiful stuff, and a must play.
Where to play Unpacking
The good news is that you can play Unpacking on just about anything. It’s available on Nintendo Switch; PlayStation 4 and PS5; Xbox One and Xbox Series X; Windows PC, Mac, and Linux; and iOS and Android. There’s nothing to choose between the different versions, they’re all as good as each other.
On most platforms, the game costs $19.99, but on mobiles, it’s $9.99. It’s also included in Game Pass, so if you have a subscription and an Xbox or a PC, that’s a great place to play it.
Unpacking has 14,000 audio files just for picking things up and putting them down
Every detail of this adorable indie was carefully considered
