In many cases, as in Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game or Stardew Valley, ‘cozy’ and ‘farming sim’ go hand in hand. However, they are hardly mutually exclusive, with some farming sim games leaning heavily into survival and/or psychological horror, in which the genre explores nightmarish terrors while immersing players in the comfort of a menial routine.

Indeed, the reason why horror and farming tend to pair so well together is that they are so seemingly unalike as genres, but actually have more in common than one would think: maybe farming sim games don’t always have jump scares or an ominous threat lurking about, but there is resource management, pests to rid the land of, and a decay to stave off. This makes Steam’s newest farming-sim horror game highly distinctive, leveraging the baked-in premise of “methodical high-stakes farming” to tell an “investigative thriller.”

As per its Steam store page, Crop tasks players with fending off rot on a decaying land. The game itself teases dark secrets to yield in the harvest, but gameplay doesn’t seem any more horrifying than a farming sim game might, and that seems to be the key. The true ‘horrors’ may merely be how one might tackle such an overwhelming obstacle, especially considering that a small town depends on players’ harvests and their ability to sustain the farm.

Crop has neat survival game features, such as “wearing a raincoat to endure a punishing storm or placing scarecrows against flocks of birds.” Likewise, the game’s art direction and atmosphere may be doing much of the heavy lifting in terms of how scary it is; for example, a Worn Bible item implies occult influences at play, which could suggest a bit of Silent Hill inspiration at work here, too.

What probably sets Crop apart most is how much of a narrative it has, which seems like the root of what makes it a “thriller.” Along the course of the game, players will uncover answers to the following questions: “Why were you brought here? Why is the town cut off from the world? And who is watching from the shadows as dusk falls?”

Consequently, exploration and interactions with NPCs are likely a major source of progression in Crop. Knowing this, there is bound to be much more than crops that players dig up from the soil, all while you “dig, plant, irrigate, and cut your way through the decay.”

Crop does not currently have a release date or window. But, as of the end of June, it boasts over 150,000 wishlists on Steam and could well be a treat for Stardew Valley and Resident Evil fans alike.

Brand

Valve

Original Release Date

September 12, 2003

Developed by Valve and released in 2003, Steam is a popular video game distribution service originally used by the company to provide updates for Valve games. In 2005, Steam expanded to distribute third-party titles. Steam users can not only browse games for purchase, but they can also post reviews and upload self-made content.