Cozy Cleaner Review (PC)

Cozy Cleaner doesn’t spearhead the idea of funneling dopamine into routine tasks. Instead, it opts to keep it calm, simple, and elegant, with as little as a dustpan, a scrubbing tool, and a collection of cluttered rooms that all require a fresh lick of paint and elbow grease. Like Unpacking, it rejects high-strung ideas—scores, time limits, and leaderboards, for example—and instead encourages patience and creativity. A home needs tidying, yet you have all the time in the world to apply the soap and water to help it sparkle.

While Cozy Cleaner doesn’t exactly capture lightning in a bottle with its de-cluttering ideologies, it does hit the nail on the head with its oh-so-charming aesthetic and satisfying gameplay hooks. Granted, it isn’t the first of its kind to dabble in the Unpacking sphere, nor will it be the last, for that matter. Yet, there’s an incredibly adorable clean ‘em up puzzler here that just works. The tools are plentiful, and the clutter is rarely a burden. It’s just a matter of finding the time and energy to sweep it all up.

The concept here is simple: you enter a room, remove its clutter, and, with a variety of cleaning tools, take care of various issues, like cobwebs, breadcrumbs, and dusty windowsills. As you unbox more items, you find the flexibility to reorganize everyday objects, as well as to transform confined spaces into wholesome suites of colorful keepsakes and homely touches. Once you complete a room, a door unlocks and you essentially move on to the next. The cycle repeats, and little by little, you work to restore a home to its former glory.

Suffice it to say that, as far as gameplay facets go, Cozy Cleaner is about as relaxing as they come. As you have no timers looming over your shoulders or spectators to impress, you more or less have a clean slate that you can tackle at your own leisure. At times, it can feel overwhelming, what with each section in the world having an enormous amount of clutter and chores for you to tend to. But more often than not, Cozy Cleaner lives up to expectations as a brilliantly creative world-building sandbox sim with a lot more to offer than dust mites and cobwebs. It also serves as an affordable alternative for therapy, which of course counts for a tremendous amount here.

Let it be said that, while the game does require you to complete all to your jobs before moving into the next phase of the campaign, at no point does it ever drive a wedge between your duties and the next chapter. As the game is openly transparent, everything is handed to you on a silver platter. You have your tools, which of course includes a mop, dustpan, cloth, and an air purifier, and you have a series of tasks to complete. How you go about completing the jobs, on the other hand, is entirely up to you. There are no repercussions for bad work here, thankfully.

Although the work can feel somewhat repetitive after a considerable amount of time, Cozy Cleaner never really loses its appeal. It’s dirty, satisfying work that honestly feels great to shovel through. Moreover, as each room houses its own collection of objects, jobs, and little quirks—a cat roaming through the clutter, for example—you always have a neat touch to look forward to. The routine might be a little predictable, but the fact that you have a wide range of original embellishments to compliment each section makes the journey a lot of fun to work through.

It doesn’t take a great deal to unearth the coziness that radiates through the warmly lit quarters of Cozy Cleaner. In a similar style as most games of its kind, it opts to retain a sense of warmth and homeliness that makes each crag and crevice a real delight to unpack. With a doughy texture and a whole host of vibrant colors, there’s certainly a lot to fall in love with here. As a fan of cozy games, you have a ton of touches to help scratch “that” ever-growing itch. And so, to that end, Cozy Cleaner is an absolute must have — especially if you’re a lover of all things Unpacking.

With all of the above said, it’s unlikely that a game like Cozy Cleaner will be to everyone’s liking. As there isn’t much of a challenge for you to carve your fist into or anything remotely taxing to take into account, you do have a rather linear, laid-back experience that, quite frankly, doesn’t require an arm and a leg to beat. But that’s all part of its warmly appeal; it’s calming, therapeutic, and above all, a brilliant way to distract yourself from the outside world. What more could you want?

Verdict

Cozy Cleaner delivers just about everything that it claims to have on the tin: a therapeutic de-cluttering experience that is, while still evidently lacking in challenges or depth, a great deal of fun to gradually carve through. It’s warm, homely, and teeming with all of the wholesome touches that, frankly, any fan of the cozy sphere will love and appreciate. Sometimes, it doesn’t need to go any deeper than that. It might not be lightning in a bottle, but it works as it is, and that’s sort of all that matters here, to be honest.

It goes without saying at this point, but if you are a fan of cozy clean ‘em up sandbox sims that pour their heart and soul into putting coziness over competitive streaks and point-based infrastructure, then it’s highly likely that you’ll enjoy sifting through the clutter in Cozy Cleaner for a couple of hours or more. It’s a cute, affordable, self-contained chore core experience that feels good to play, and surprisingly, even better to tidy up.

When all’s said and done, you don’t really need to look anywhere else to get your fix for coziness than in these warmly crafted quarters. It might not propel your desire for a relentless battle, but it’ll definitely give you something to feel proud about. I guess that’s more than enough to keep you interested in this case. It was for me, anyway.