Listen, I’m not going to pretend I know anything about homeownership. I don’t own property, and I doubt it’s on the cards for me. What I do understand, though, is the desire to make a house a home: sourcing paint that matches your aesthetic, trawling Facebook Marketplace for second-hand gems, or making a huge mess in the kitchen while following a TikTok recipe.

And I’m not alone. It seems that growing numbers of young people, unable to channel their creativity into designing real homes, are turning to homeownership-simulating video games as an alternative outlet. Interest in the cosy gaming genre – which often encompasses games centred on self-expression – is on the rise: according to Google Trends, searches for “cosy gaming” have increased sharply since 2024.

Subcategories within this self-soothing style of gaming include farming simulators (Stardew Valley), life sims (Animal Crossing, The Sims, Tomodachi Life) and sandbox builders (Minecraft). And while decoration or design can be a subgenre in its own right, these elements are increasingly appearing in legacy titles too, with games like World of Warcraft and Pokémon incorporating interior-decorating features into their latest editions (Midnight, Pokopia).

Indie games are tapping into this trend too. Home renovation game Hozy was released on Steam at the end of last month to mostly positive reviews. In it, players can “restore a forgotten neighbourhood through your favourite hobby, one cosy room at a time” by cleaning, painting and decorating abandoned homes “to bring each space back to life.” In a tongue-in-cheek X post responding to Hozy’s launch, user @cybernooped wrote: “we are so cooked bro homeownership is now a videogame genre”.

In the UK, 35 per cent of men — that’s one in three — and 22 per cent of women aged 20 to 35 are currently living with their parents, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. The rate is rising for both groups, which is hardly surprising given that youth unemployment is at its highest level in a decade (and especially worrying when young people need money more than ever). When life in the real world feels like an increasingly bleak slog, it’s no wonder people are retreating into comforting video-game worlds.

24-year-old fashion designer, part-time receptionist and lifelong Animal Crossing player Matthew Thompson currently lives in a single bedroom flat with his partner in London. As in many standard rental agreements, the furnishings contractually have to be left as they were found. Which in Thompson’s case involves two, separate, giant framed portraits of a koala and a giraffe, “both hidden under the bed.” 

Matthew likens the satisfaction of customising digital spaces to playing with Lego or dolls in childhood. “I don't think we lose our enjoyment in creating imaginary environments and scenarios as we grow up,” he explains, adding that there’s a nostalgic kind of melancholy in being able to revisit those childhood impulses, even if it never feels exactly the same as before. “I enjoy how it allows me to either recreate a place I’ve already been to, imagine an idealised future for myself, or conjure a narrative with settings and characters.”

“It is not just about placing furniture; it is about self-expression,” says Indie Game Joe, a video game consultant (and former painter-decorator). “When the economy or the housing market feels like a game you cannot win, people look for systems where the rules actually make sense,” he says, adding that you can clearly see the fruits of your labour in most cosy games (unlike in real life, where hard graft can rarely translate to material rewards). “The popularity is a direct response to a high-pressure world,” he continues. “Life is loud and unpredictable right now. Cosy gaming offers a digital sanctuary where the primary objective is peace rather than conquest: it is the video game equivalent of a weighted blanket.”

“Sometimes all you want is a soft, calm space where nothing is on fire and nobody is yelling at you,” YouTuber Shandell James says in his video Why Tired Adults Should Play Cozy Games, in which he describes at length how these games can offer emotional rest. “Real life already feels like one big quest log, so why would we want games to pile even more pressure on top?” he says. “They give you control in a world where you often don’t feel like you have any.”

Matthew finds gaming a particularly helpful way to tap into creativity at the end of a long day in an uncreative job. “The simple, repetitive but productive nature of these games helps people unwind and get through turbulent periods,” he says. Harvest Moon, The Sims, Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders and Boku no Natsuyasumi are all part of his rotation, alongside Animal Crossing. “But I do think we tend to overpathologise people’s enjoyment of things in general,” he adds. “I think I would enjoy playing Animal Crossing even if I lived in a mansion in Chelsea. But maybe it wouldn’t feel quite so depressing to be making ‘dream homes’ while barely being able to afford existing in London.”