This utterly charming puzzle game is made by Hello Games and was released in 2020. I think The Last Campfire gets a little overshadowed by one of the studio’s other titles, No Man’s Sky, but this is an absolute must for any cozy gamers looking for a bittersweet story full of fun and challenging puzzles, a colourful art style, beautiful score and gentle fairytale-like narration.

The developer’s description reads:

The Last Campfire is an adventure, a story of a lost ember trapped in a puzzling place, searching for meaning and a way home.

You play as protagonist Ember, a small spirit whose design is reminiscent of 2012’s Journey (another exploration puzzle game I’d highly recommend!) and you have the important task of finding your way through a strange land while waking and guiding other lost souls to the campfires dotted across the map so that they can in turn be guided onward. The strong themes of hope and determination shine through each encounter and puzzle, and I got entirely sucked in, with my first play session lasting way longer than I’d intended!

The different areas you discover all have a unique theme which keeps things fresh. You might start in a crumbling, overgrown ruin and next find yourself in a pig swamp choked with litter and mud. Not to say that any of the areas are ugly or particularly unfriendly (even in the Pig Swamp you can have fun sliding down the mud chutes to get from one platform to another, something that Ember has a lot of fun doing).

When I encountered the birds or the giant pig, my first thought was that there might be some kind of confrontation, but there is no combat in The Last Campfire. Creatures that you think might be hostile – and who even start out as such – have deeper motivations that you will uncover and it can completely change your opinion of them. Some of them even end up helping you in creative ways, as with the giant pig whose massive head ends up acting as a makeshift bridge for you to cross a gap. It’s just such a lovely game in so many ways, and deeper than you might expect.

Another thing that really drew me in was the beautiful score by Paul Weir. The music immerses you in this world and is a perfect accompaniment to the curious setting. It’s sweet, sad and uplifting at the right moments. Honestly, everything in this game is well executed and tied together.

Oh but I can’t forget to mention the narration – gentle, hopeful, poetic and often a little sorrowful. The narrator is with you every step of the way, providing commentary, voices for the many NPCs you encounter, reading out journal entries to help understand the world better, and even offering encouragement to Ember when most needed. The narrator brings a magical, storybook vibe to the entire game, one where you feel like you’re playing out a fable. If the developers had chosen to give each character their own voice and voice actor, it would be a totally different game, but what they went with works perfectly to remind you that, even though you are lost and trying to make sense of the world around you, you are never alone.

My favourite things: definitely when you find a lost soul, stuck like little stone statues, and you offer up a spark of light and watch them slowly wake up and fill with colour. It’s such a gorgeous moment in the game and got me in the heart every single time.

The Last Campfire is available on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC.