30 December 2025

New Cozy RPG Takes the Best of Stardew Valley and Adds a Magical Setting

By newsgame

Although cozy games, especially those boasting a quasi-retro pixelated art style, are ubiquitous in the indie scene, Witchbrook seems to be tackling the genre from a slightly different angle. The Stardew Valley-inspired slice-of-life project has been in the works since at least 2018, and is currently targeting a 2026 release date.

Witchbrook will take players to the scenic, mystical town of Mossport, which houses the eponymous Witchbrook College. This premise should immediately sound familiar to those acquainted with the seminal Harry Potter franchise, as it mixes everyday mundanity with fantastical magic elements. Through this cross-pollination of Hogwarts Legacy and Stardew Valley, Witchbrook hopes to capture a unique experience within the cozy/casual gaming space on Steam, which is quite oversaturated at the moment; ideally, Witchbrook will do something interesting and novel despite wearing its genre influences on its sleeve.

Witchbrook Will Be Yet Another Stardew Valley-Inspired Cozy Game

Presentation and structure are the two areas where Witchbrook is most similar to Stardew Valley. The game features the same pixel-art graphics as ConcernedApe’s modern classic, but its open-ended gameplay and social simulation systems serve as powerful parallels as well. At a glance, Witchbrook purports to include a number of Stardew-isms, including:

Unique, predetermined NPC schedules
Romance sub-stories
Changing seasons & seasonal events
RPG progression
Character and home customization
Crafting and commerce systems
4-player co-op

Witchbrook‘s developers have also likened it to other classic games, especially 2000s browser-based MMOs like Habbo Hotel. In a November 2025 dev blog, Witchbrook Senior Artist Jade Evans also cited browser-based dress-up and makeover games as specific inspirations, suggesting that character customization will play an even more significant role than in other Stardew-like cozy games.

How Witchbrook’s Hogwarts-Esque Magic Vibes Help Guide Its Cozy Construction

While Stardew Valley certainly features fantastical elements, from the existence of wizards to the various mystical creatures littered about the mines of Pelican Town, it’s not explicitly magical. These fantasy aspects are like seasonings, or perhaps side dishes, to the main course, which is much more grounded. Stardew Valley and its inheritors are often focused on creating fun and engaging systems rooted in repetitive, fundamental practices like farming, foraging, and slowly nurturing relationships with those in your community.

And of course, similar activities will feature in Witchbrook, but the magical-college premise offers a fun and worthwhile twist. The player-character is an attendee of Witchbrook College, after all, and this informs their suite of cozy-game activities. Witchbrook will offer a number of different academic paths for players to follow, allowing them to learn a variety of important skills and disciplines, including:

Potion-crafting
Divination
Alchemy
Astrology
Tarot

Players can go on to apply these skills to a number of quests and favors. For example, a player with expertise in divination can act as something of a personal psychic for the citizens of Mossport, while an alchemist or experienced potion-maker can create various medicines to treat those afflicted with certain maladies. Witchbrook‘s developers say that the practical applications of magic within a relatively grounded economy were inspired by works like Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series, as well as Kiki’s Delivery Service. These are both stories that focus on magic’s use for the public good, so they may offer a good indication of how Witchbrook will incorporate its witchcraft from a mechanical and narrative perspective.

In a particularly illuminating dev blog, Producer Rosie Ball explains how Witchcraft College itself is loosely based upon the building and landscape architecture of Cambridge University.

What to Expect from Witchbrook in 2026

As previously mentioned, Witchbrook was pushed back from a planned 2025 release date to sometime in 2026. Even so, Witchbrook‘s developers report “great development progress” in 2025, suggesting that the delay might not be so extreme: the game could conceivably still launch in early 2026. This would probably be for the best, as it would give Witchbrook some much-needed breathing room before the holiday season, which is when GTA 6 is expected to crash into the games market like a wrecking ball.

Witchbrook‘s developers say that the practical applications of magic within a relatively grounded economy were inspired by works like Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series, as well as Kiki’s Delivery Service.

For now, prospective fans can explore the several Witchbrook development updates that continue to be shared by Chucklefish and Robotality, one of which includes a detailed interactive map of Mossport. Also worth noting are Chucklefish’s plans to bring Witchbrook to Xbox Game Pass on day one, which could very well lead to a greater player base in spite of mass Game Pass cancellations in 2025. Until then, audiences can tide themselves over with the bevy of other Stardew-likes on the market. Hopefully, Witchbrook is able to blow these other competitors out of the water, making a big splash of its own.