Cattle Country (2025)

I started this, and after the first seven hours, I have mixed feelings. Yee-haw or yawn?

It's definitely Stardew Valley in the Wild West.

For those who found Stardew Valley too stressful, this could be the right game. It has the same cosy feeling, but with far less friction. You still need to be in bed by 2am and your stamina holds you back, but the day is longer, stamina depletes more slowly, food is easier to come by, and enemies are easily defeated or can be turned off in the settings. The fishing minigame is faster and more intuitive, and skills level up quickly. YEE-HAW!

If you're the type of person who tries to maximise their success in the first season of Stardew Valley by having a dancing partner, winning the egg festival, and planting 100 strawberries on the night of the festival to get an extra harvest, this is probably not the game for you. There is no incentive to plan or hurry in the hours I have played. YAWN!

Here are some interesting differences to Stardew Valley:

• The mines are vertical, more like Terraria. You need to build ladders and bridges to reach all the ore, as well as removing the dirt around it.
• There are lots of different wild animals in the world, some of which are friendly, some shy and some aggressive. You can hunt them and make leather. I'm not sure if you can kill farm animals, since I am not far enough in the game to buy them. Alternatively, you can choose not to hunt and buy the leather. There is a shooting minigame which I like, but maybe just because I am good at it.
• You can build a toilet shed that gives your character a speed boost after they make a cute fart noise.

I'm torn between being happy not to have to stress out and being a bit bored. The game reminds me of playing SV again. Then I'm content just to water my plants on my to be Ranch and watch the bees make honey — there are little bees buzzing around, which is cute!