The simmering emotions of cosy tea-brewing sim Wanderstop have been repressed until next year

Steeping a little longer

The cosy (but maybe not so cosy) tea-brewing adventure Wanderstop has been delayed until next year, say developers Ivy Road. The colourful game about a troubled arena fighter retiring into a life of lapsang souchong and repressed urges to do sudden violence had previously been planned for a release some time in 2024, according to the developer's original announcement. But game development is, as ever, a fickle destroyer of plans. "Reading the tea leaves, it has become clear that Wanderstop needs a tiny bit more time to fully bloom," they said in a Steam post yesterday, adding that their new estimate is "early 2025".

The game is being published by Annapurna Interactive, which recently imploded like a sad submarine after all its crew angrily fired themselves into the sea via the torpedo bays. Although we don't know the exact details of how the publisher's ongoing difficulty is affecting studios linked to it, it's likely not helping. It's worth emphasising, however, that Ivy Road don't state whether this particular hiccup has contributed to the delay. For all I know it could just be that they simply need more time to make the character look even more angry.

The head honchos at Ivy Road include Davey Wreden, co-confuser of the Stanley Parable, and Karla Zimonja, feelings eliciter of Tacoma and Gone Home. These two narrative-focused names should tip you off about an impending flipping-of-the-script (if the above trailer doesn't). Wanderstop is being marketed partly as a "cosy" life simulator game along the lines of My Time At Portia and the like. But it's clear a deeper level of introspection is intended.

All good in my books. The "cosy game" has been left uninterrogated for too long. After all, who could interrogate that adorable widdle facey-wace? Well, probably these people. In an interview with the Guardian, Wreden said at some point in development he realised that the characters were "in real conflict and very much not OK... They wouldn’t be magically healed by drinking tea in the middle of the woods.”