Relaxed mode games

It helps that the game runs on practically anything with buttons and a screen it even comes included with new Chromebook purchases right now. Playing this first-person adventure game and walking simulator will almost remind you what it was like to leave the house.

Explore the lush Shoshone National Forest as a solitary fire lookout who stumbles upon more mystery than he bargained for. Available on: PC , Mac.

Enjoy the adorable character design and the autumnal color palette as you dig up treasure and chat with the locals. These two games, developed by most of the same people, each feature silent protagonists navigating through visually arresting worlds in Journey , a lonely desert; in Abzu , an ocean filled with life.

Neither is very long or very deep, but both give you lots to look at and listen to. Turn off the lights, plug in your good headphones, and enjoy. If an Escher painting were made into a game, Monument Valley and its sequel would be the result. Challenging but never impossible, this is a good choice if you just want to chip away at something a couple of puzzles at a time.

In Eufloria , you play as a cloud of insect-like creatures orbiting a planet. As your swarm of insects grows larger over time, you can begin to explore the map, finding and occupying other planets and taking them over from other insects.

Just be sure not to leave your own planets totally undefended. Simple but atmospheric graphics, sound effects, and music seal the deal.

You are a goose, and you cause low-stakes trouble for everybody in your idyllic village. But it's surprisingly calming! You float in zero-g with your metal-cutting tools in hand, thrusting gently along a still hull to dissect an empty freighter, cracking its bones open like a dead whale.

Alongside blue-collar sims like Euro Truck Simulator 2, Hardspace is a game about labor, and about grappling with a delicate, three-dimensional puzzle, often from the inside-out.

The jangly cowboy soundtrack slows the whole thing down nicely. Read more Hardspace: Shipbreaker is relaxing until an explosion propels a hunk of nanocarbon into your face.

The problem with the stunningly beautiful and richly detailed worlds of Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Odyssey is, well, you have to stab a lot of people in them. Those people want to stab you too, as it turns out. But there's a way to explore those breathtaking open worlds without combat or stress, and you can learn quite a bit while you're at it.

Both games have a Discovery Tour mode, letting you travel through ancient Egypt and Greece as a student of history. Visiting cities and landmarks will trigger educational audio lessons and short vignettes, and there's plenty of extra reading if you want to learn more.

You can travel on foot, by horseback, on boats, or by simply teleporting to the locations you want to visit and learn about. And there's zero stabbing involved. Wattam , from the creator of Katamari Damacy, is a game about friendship and poo. Lots of different colored poo, holding hands with one another and with a toilet while singing and dancing in a circle.

If you want to get technical, it's kind of a physics sandbox, where you control a range of characters and objects with silly and sensible interactions. Most of the joy is in those pairings: letting a mouth with legs eat a strawberry and turn it into poo, or finding salmon eggs to please a forlorn piece of sushi. It's the kind of game you just play around with and chuckle at every so often. Ahh, contentment. Read more Wattam review. Year Developer Campo Santo There are some stressful, scary, and occasionally sad moments in Firewatch , but there are also hours of peaceful rambling to enjoy in its gorgeously stylised Wyoming wilderness.

Exploring the woods as Henry, using your map and compass to navigate, chatting with Delilah, is so relaxing that I wish there was more of it in the game. For the most authentic, challenging hiking experience, disable the marker that shows you where you are on the map.

Read more Firewatch review. Year Developer D3T Despite being a martial arts revenge epic, the original Shenmue is deeply chill. It's the quiet moments where it shines: exploring s Japan as teenager Ryo Hazuki, going to work, feeding a kitten, collecting capsule toys. The sleepy suburbs of Yokosuka make for an evocative setting and it's one of the nicest places on PC to just exist in—especially when winter comes and the snow begins to fall.

Challenge Mode is unlocked when the player completes a game for the first time. Robin dies whenever she takes damage, but not when breaking an Iron Heart or fighting Nobel.

Tweaks are repaired by interacting with Icons of Prayer and beds instead of collecting Ivory squares. Bosses behave the same as they do in Harder Mode. Robin can reclaim schematics that she already received, but they will be purple instead of orange and not unlock Tweaks. Boss Rush is unlocked when the player completes a game for the first time. All bosses behave the same as they do in Harder Mode.

Robin has the Galvanization Wrench and all three shots.