Wanderstop — PS5

Wanderstop is a narrative-centric cozy game about change and tea. Playing as a fallen fighter named Alta, you'll manage a tea shop within a magical forest and tend to the customers who pass through. But Alta does not want to be here. And if she gets her way, the tea shop will be nothing but a brief and painful memory.

The core game loop of Wanderstop is a tea shop management ritual, starting with growing and harvesting the ingredients needed for tea, and ending with mixing the ingredients together in an unusual tea-making contraption. Along the way you'll speak with the many characters who pass through the shop, learning their stories and making tea that's just right for them.

In your downtime you might clean up around the shop, or decorate the shop in your style, or just sit on a bench with a cup of tea and listen to your own thoughts. Maybe doing nothing at all is okay. The shop demands patience, it rejects those who have come only in the pursuit of growth unchecked.

And that's why Alta can't be here. It's why she'll never make it. This isn't who she is. No, she's a fighter! Why would anyone insist on turning the world's greatest championship warrior into a docile servant?! With everything she's capable of?? No no no, she won't, she won't do it... she can't...

Wanderstop is a game from the team at Ivy Road, including Davey Wreden (creator of The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide), Karla Zimonja (co-creator of Gone Home and Tacoma) and Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld (the music of Minecraft).