Highlights
- Indie studio Castle Pixel’s Cattle Country merges Stardew Valley’s feel with Red Dead Redemption, promising a unique cozy game experience.
- Cattle Country adds a wild-west twist to the beloved Stardew Valley formula, offering players a mix of small-town life and classic Western nostalgia.
- The risk of Cattle Country being overshadowed by Stardew Valley’s success is present, but new ideas like shootouts and hunting activities may set it apart.
Stardew Valley fans looking for some wild-west flavor are in luck, as indie studio Castle Pixel is working on Cattle Country, a game that melds Stardew Valley‘s retro, cozy aesthetic with the quaint Americana twang of Red Dead Redemption. Cattle Country‘s spin on the Stardew Valley formula shows a lot of promise, especially for those missing the quiet, contemplative moments of Rockstar’s western opus.
So-called cozy games didn’t start with Stardew Valley, but the genre certainly exploded following the 2016 game’s release. Although Stardew Valley has received steady updates over the years, it has also inspired a staggering number of spiritual successors, which tweak its polished, addictive, Harvest Moon-inspired life sim mechanics in a number of ways, and to varying degrees of success. With Cattle Country, Castle Pixel is targeting a very specific mix of small town life and classic western nostalgia, making it an interesting prospect for Stardew Valley players.
Related
Haunted Chocolatier’s Combat Needs a Massive Feature Stardew Valley Skipped
Haunted Chocolatier is the successor to Stardew Valley, one of 2016’s best games, but one element of the upcoming title needs a big improvement.
Cattle Country Looks Like a Charming Mix of Stardew and Red Dead Redemption 2
How Cattle Country Couches Cozy Gameplay in a Western Setting
One look at Cattle Country is all it takes to see the Stardew Valley resemblance. The wild-west cozy game has all the hallmarks of a Stardew-inspired title, including colorful pixel art, grid-based farming mechanics, and social simulation features based around small-town living. Cattle Country‘s gameplay loop revolves around farming, engaging with villagers, exploring mines and other inhospitable areas, and crafting various goods. Indeed, if one weren’t overly familiar with Stardew Valley, they could be mistaken for thinking that Cattle Country is a wild-west-themed DLC or mod for the game.
Cattle Country‘s greatest departure from Stardew is, naturally, its setting and premise. The Cattle Country reveal trailer, which just so happens to feature Arthur Morgan voice actor Roger Clark, evokes feelings of quaint, yet exciting frontier life. The game leverages western tropes like bull-riding, shootouts, and cattle-driving, which promise to give the game a more rough around the edges feel than the wholesome Stardew Valley.
While Roger Clark narrates the
Cattle Country
trailer, it’s not clear whether he will be in the actual game. Since these sorts of cozy games don’t usually have voice acting,
Red Dead Redemption 2
fans may want to temper their expectations.
Cattle Country: Hopefully More than Just Stardew Valley with Red Dead Redemption Seasoning
As previously mentioned, Cattle Country bears an uncanny resemblance to Stardew Valley, which has the potential to work to its detriment. So many of Cattle Country‘s core mechanics, from how farming and mining seem to work, to how players interact with and romance NPCs, appear to be copied right from Stardew Valley—the two games even have similar UI design. Stardew Valley has arguably remained the most relevant cozy farming-centric game since its release, so trying to compete with it in such a direct way could be tricky.
This risk is exacerbated by the fact that the cozy, Stardew Valley-inspired farming genre is beyond flooded at this point. Games like My Time at Portia, Graveyard Keeper, and Fae Farm all have their strengths, but when it feels like a new laid-back life sim is launching every other day, a newcomer to the genre needs to do a lot to stand out. What’s more is that these games are often designed to be played either indefinitely or for extremely long periods of time, making it tough for players to straddle multiple titles at once.
Having said all that, Cattle Country does seem to be bringing a few new ideas to the table, like its shootouts and hunting activities, which are definitely a bit edgier than what’s on offer in most cozy titles. Hopefully, Cattle Country leverages its unique premise to be competitive in the Stardew Valley-like cozy game space.