In a loud world where everyone is battling to be heard, it’s easy to forget that the quiet and smaller moments of kindness hold the most power. A lot of the time, it’s easy to think that keeping to yourself is the easiest way to deal with things, whether you’re dealing with your own pain or trying to find the right way to navigate someone else’s. It’s never easy to know what to do, we’re all trying our best – after all this is all our first time being human. But one truth remains:a little kindness goes a long way. Winter Burrow, the intrepid little mouse game, shows this more than anything else I’ve played in 2025.
Other than the need to survive without freezing your little tail to death or looking for your Aunty after she was snatched up by an Owl, most of your actions in Winter Burrow are born of the mouse’s kindness. From reuniting a remorseful Toad with their stubborn Tadpole and making them both listen to each other, to helping a nervous Hedgehog navigate loss – your small, seemingly innate, acts of compassion and kindness have an everlasting impact.
A little way into the story you meet Moss, a nervous Hedgehog missing their partner Pinesap who’s not been seen for an unnerving amount of time. There’s an air around them that they already know the truth, but can’t bring themselves to think of that or their world will crumble. Before you can begin looking for Pinesap, you spend time doing multiple smaller tasks for Moss to try to piece together what happened to their partner. After a few devastating clues, the answer becomes glaringly obvious – and the steps you’ve just taken for Moss end up holding more weight than they did before.
Those small acts of kindness helping Moss out, from tracking down a missing heavy key to locating Pinesap’s Wollen Hood, eventually add up to help Moss process the news no one wants to hear – their favourite person is gone. Grief can be all-consuming, whether you’re grieving the loss of a loved one or the loss of your health, perhaps something that meant a lot to you, no matter what you grieve the feeling is the same – it can swallow you whole, leaving you very little strength to claw your way back out again.
After learning the truth about Pinesap, it’s clear that Moss was close to falling into that all-consuming void and would have if it weren’t for you. Caught in a loop between knowing the truth while denying what they know by holding on to the small strings of hope they have left.
‘Don’t abandon old Moss’, a simple request on the surface but one with a much deeper meaning after learning Pinesap’s fate. Moss doesn’t want to be alone, and soon learns that they don’t have to be. Your few minutes a day of compassion give them their life back – Moss eventually figures out how to be themselves again.
It’s not just Moss though – all of the NPCs you meet are so caught up in their own lives that they’ve unintentionally become isolated and are trying to figure things out on their own. Bufo is lost in wondering about their runaway tadpole Pollywog, Willow is deep in their research, and Aunty became too worried about the outside world to venture out. Without you, they all would have remained separated, trying to cope with things alone – not knowing that there was another option.
And that’s what Winter Burrow highlights so well when you look at many of the characters you meet, choosing to talk to them and not just listening, but choosing to hear them changes their lives for the better. It’s easy to forget that the smallest actions have the biggest impact, and that sometimes all anyone ever needs is to be seen.
Whether it was for the day, or for a lot longer than that, Winter Burrow proves that a few small acts of kindness go a long way.
