- Primary Subject: Heartopia (Steam Release)
- Key Update: The social life sim Heartopia has officially launched on Steam, introducing deep hobby progression and "Third Place" social mechanics to a global audience.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: February 10, 2026
- Quick Answer: Heartopia is a free-to-play cozy life sim on Steam featuring deep house customization, social hubs, and unique hobbies like birdwatching and pet care.
With all the chaos that’s going on in the world, who wouldn’t love cozy games? From farming simulators to bookstore management, the genre has become more and more popular. Although I do like cozy games, it's been a while since I could say I fell in love with one. That is, until the release of Heartopia.
Heartopia is a cozy life simulator with gacha mechanics. The game has been out in China for quite some time; however, the full game just released for everyone else on Steam. After sinking a few hours into it, I can safely say that while it is as addictive as it is fun, it is not without its flaws.
Unique Hobbies and Progression
I’ve seen developers on Steam churn out cozy game clones with just the smallest tweaks to their gameplay, and I expected much of the same from Heartopia. There was fishing, farming, and insect catching, all of which were mainstays in the cozy game formula. But then I saw that the list went on to include birdwatching, cooking, and pet care, each one having its own progression tree to work through as the game went on.
These are hobbies that I’ve rarely seen in cozy games, let alone bunched up in a single game like this. Before I knew it, I found myself cooking on multiple stoves at once just so I could grind out my cooking hobby to the max.
Heartopia is a game with tons of collectibles to unlock, and it does a good job of making all of these collectibles accessible to players. Thankfully, there isn’t a legendary fish out there that’s locked behind a pay-to-win premium fishing rod. But we all have to remember that the game is still a free-to-play gacha, and it has to sink its teeth into you somehow.
Progressing through the many hobby trees is the most satisfying thing about Heartopia, and although you can unlock everything by just playing the game, you do have the option of spending premium currency to make progression easier. While it isn’t completely game-breaking, I still wish that having more planters wasn’t locked behind a paywall.
The Expansive World
It only takes a single look at Heartopia to conclude that, yes, the game is really damn cute. The world is vibrant, the characters are fashionable, and the creatures that you encounter are so plump they make me want to reach through the screen and squish them with my bare hands. Despite all of this, the best part about the cute world is probably how you can truly make it feel more like your own.
Heartopia includes an expansive house customization mode akin to The Sims, and this isn’t an exaggeration. A friend of mine who recently got the game even went so far as to demolish their entire beginner house and start from the ground up, creating something that’s personal to them.
Sadly, the charm ends there, because as soon as you enter any of the other overworld locations, you’re met with endless droves of nothing. Sure, there are a few nice sights and fishing spots that you could enjoy, but none of them feel interactive and alive. The map is also reasonably large, which means there’ll be stretches of land where you’re just walking.
The game does make up for this by placing tons of collectibles in your path, but I still wish they’d do more with the environments. Thankfully, the in-game events add temporary landmarks that make it feel more special.
The Third Place
I’ve written in length about video games slowly replacing the “Third Place” before, and Heartopia further cements that. Heartopia has a plethora of options you could do with your friends, and most of them still progress the game somehow. There are fishing parties, insect-catching parties, and even house parties you can get invited to by other players in the server!
As I’m writing this, I am coming from a Heartopia game session involving a few friends that went on until midnight, and even then, there were still tons left to do in-game. The game also does a great job of motivating you to interact with friends, considering each one has a friendship progression bar that progresses the more you interact with each other.
If I had any gripes about the social interactions within the game, it’d just be wanting more of them. Please give me mini games to play and grind with my friends. Why not throw a Pomodoro timer in there, too?
I have high hopes for where Heartopia is going, and I believe that it’s only a matter of time until this game grows into what I would call the Club Penguin of our generation. Let’s just hope they run it back on all the AI art that they’ve been using with the puzzle boxes, because until then, I am not spending a single dime on AI slop.
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