REVIEW: ‘Wanderstop’ Gives Us Permission To Be Happy

Developed by Ivy Road and published by Annapurna Interactive, Wanderstop is the best and worst thing I could have played. In a narrative-centric, cozy game, your goal is to stop, make tea, and think about what you need to thrive. More importantly, it’s about what you do when doing everything right still results in failing. Instead of telling the story of a hero triumphing over evil and fighting, Wanderstop puts the player in the role of a hero who just needs to sit and drink a cup of tea.

Wanderstop is a cozy narrative-centric experience that takes a fallen warrior who starts to manage a tea shop. In it, you play as a fallen fighter named Alta, whose sword becomes too heavy to wield. She’s a competitor, a fighter, and fighting is all she’s ever known.

In Wanderstop’s opening, we hear Alta explain why she fights. Ultimately, it’s for control. When you fight and are knocked down, you can get back up and train harder and faster. You can get control back when you do everything right. Alta gets stronger, gets faster, and becomes undefeated. The pain she experiences from losing drives her, and she achieves her goal. Alta is a hero. Then she loses.

Despite doing every single thing right, the loss breaks her spirit. This is a failure. She is not good enough. And if she can find a mysterious master, she can do it again. She can be better. Sword in hand, Alta takes off into the forest. She runs and runs, and the sword gets heavier.

Wanderstop is engaging, impactful, and the perfect game for a generation that just can’t slow down.

The game lets you put down the sword or keep running with it. If you’re like me and you hold onto it, you’re forced to drop it. Willpower won’t get you through the weight. She drops the sword and continues running. Again, the game gives you the chance to stop. And, if you’re like me, you decide to keep going. And then you pass out, waking up in a clearing with a sweet man named Boro sitting next to you.

With Boro providing you with resources, Alta tends to the clearing and its customers and develops a routine that helps show her that life is more than fighting. One of the key things in Wanderstop’s gameplay loop is that Boro, the kind man at your side, doesn’t tell you to do anything. There are tasks you can do, or you can leave the Clearing, only to return, warry and still unable to lift your sword. But the openness of Boro’s interactions with you makes everything that Alta does her choice alone.

A game about burnout and recovering, Wanderstop’s key to success is that it pushes the player to choose to make and to stop. It’s an active choice to continue through the game, but it also puts you into a frame of mind that moves forward with permission to slow down. For Alta, her happiness feels unreachable. She hears their stories as she connects with customers, finding the right brews to fill their orders. Some are simple, others reflective, and one in particular is so emotional you’ll need to take a step back.

As Alta meets more people, she begins to understand what her own life means. Taking time to sit on the bench, sipping tea, and ultimately reminiscing in the process. Each brew gives Alta a different connection to her past and it’s only by taking a beat to yourself that Alta can explore them. Like everything else in the game, this is all a choice. You can go as deep or as little into who Alta is as you work your way through the 15-hours of story.

Outside of the narrative developments central to the game, Wanderstop still embodies what you would expect from a cozy farming sim. To make the tea, you need to grow and harvest ingredients before brewing them. With a Book of Answers in hand that lets you explore the clearing and catalog its herbs, this game boasts an intricate pundit square system of growing that provides players who love farming a level of depth that can be explored. The tactile nature of the tea-making contraption, the sounds it makes from the moment you put in the ingredients to the fulfilling pouring mechanic, all work to connect you to the clearing.

The clearing is your space to do what you want, and that’s reflected through your ability to plant and harvest anywhere in the space. In order to move different plants, the potting mechanic makes the act feel impactful. The decoration system isn’t just picking something up and moving it. It’s about being connected to the elements you’re moving. Putting a picture in a frame or potting a plant highlights this.

The clearing is yours to decorate as much or as little as you want, everything is your choice in Wanderstop.

As you decorate the clearing and the shop (like using the camera to put pictures throughout the space and more), the space you craft for yourself is all about fulfillment and ultimately understanding that sometimes you need to stop running and be happy. Only being happy means that sometimes your dreams shift, and you have to take care of yourself, even if it means going on a different path or just doing nothing. With an always-accessible Book of Answers, Wanderstop’s tutorialization is slow when you’re stuck, but keeping that pace is essential.

Outside of its mechanics, Wanderstop is just a gorgeous game. With a hyper-stylized aesthetic, the creature and environment designs are always inviting. The color palette is as vibrant as it is calming, and the soundscape accompanying it isn’t just about relaxation but immersion.

I am not the same person I was when I first demoed the game in December of 2024. And I’m not the same person I was when I started playing in February. And when I play this game again for a small respite in a life that I don’t fully understand anymore, I’ll be a different person then. Wanderstop is essential in such a devastating time, and its story of reconnecting with your peace couldn’t come soon enough. Burnout is central to this story, but more importantly, the fact that you can choose to change is key.

Wanderstop isn’t perfect, with some rough edges around the gathering system. But if there is anything to take away from the game, you don’t need to be perfect to matter. Ivy Road has made a game that has impact and one that doesn’t change its protagonist, but you, the player, too. There isn’t a game like this that takes the cozy genre and explores what can be done with it. Wanderstop is monumental because it provides comfort by simply giving us all permission to stop running and care for ourselves.

Wanderstop will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 11, 2025.