I was in the market for a new cozy game for my Switch Lite and I’d seen this one mentioned on a few lists. It helped that there's a demo you can download to see how the gameplay handles, and also that it went on sale while I was testing the demo.
Spiritfarer by ThunderLotus is “a cozy management game about dying.” That might seem like an odd description, but it is indeed a game about managing resources while helping spirits move on to the other side. You've taken over the role of ferryperson from Chiron, sailing spirits around until it's time for them to say goodbye. There are tasks that need to be done for each spirit, as well as shenanigans for random other people you meet along the way.
The world grows as you meet more people, finish more tasks, and upgrade your boat. I played this pretty casually, so at times I found it a bit difficult to remember all the people, places, and things within the world. The map only shows place names when you hover over the location, so trying to remember where an island was located involved hovering over everything island-shaped in the area I’m pretty sure it was located. The supporting cast are very similar in design, so it was tough at times to remember where the ‘shenanigan’ person I talked to was located, and sometimes I ended up talking to everyone on the island until I finally found that person.
There’s a lot of collecting of resources to be done, especially in the beginning, and while I found fishing to be the most tedious (I broke the pole so many times), I really enjoyed planting, weaving, and especially the cooking aspect. As someone who often looks up guides online to make sure I'm doing things correctly, I found myself giving in to the experimentation of it all. What happens when I put these two ingredients together? Let’s find out!!
While most of the tasks were easy enough, there was one task that I had to look up the answer for online. I had to play a song near a building, but when I did nothing would happen. I tried so many locations around that building, and eventually had to give up and look online for an answer. It turns out that I had to find a specific spot and play the song there, but there was no mention of that in the task. There was also a glitch with a clothing task, which I never would have been able to complete without finding a work-around online.
Some of the characters were a bit annoying and brash, but their attitudes tended to soften over time. Each character goes through changes, and some of it can be quite sweet and sad. When you make the final journey with them, it’s a gentle time of reflection and acknowledgement.
There was one moment when a passenger left without saying goodbye, and I’m a little shocked by how hard it hit me. I expected it to be a mistake—for them to come back—but they never did. It was a passenger I loved being around, and missing out on that final boat ride made the loss of them harder to accept.
During my playthrough, I managed to trigger the final task sooner than expected, which surprised me. I wasn’t ready to go—I had so many tasks left to do and places to discover, and I still had passengers to take care of. I put off the ending, avoiding the final task until I finally felt I’d accomplished enough. While I hadn’t fully completed the game, I knew I could play it again. But for this file, after 30+ hours of gameplay, I felt like it was finally time for it to end.
And when it was all said and done, and I’d had a moment to reflect—on the story, on my life, on loss, on everything—I wanted to cry. Not a sad, lonely cry, but a cathartic one. A good one. And, honestly, what could be a more fitting ending for a game where your interactions are Give, Feed, Talk, and Hug.
(And, yes, you can hug the cat.)
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