Rainy games to play when it's just too hot.

When it's too hot to function, these atmospheric and rainy video games are the next best thing to actual rain.

The UK is not built for this. We have houses built to retain heat, a cultural inability to own a fan until it's already too late, and a collective sense of betrayal every time the temperature hits thirty. Yet here we are, every summer now, lying face-down on cool kitchen floors waiting for the heat to break 🥵

The only reasonable response I have found is to put on my headphones, load up a game, and will myself into a different climate entirely (I won’t mention the unreasonable responses).

I’m an autumnaphile, a pluviophile, and all I’m looking for right now is the relief of watching rain fall on a screen when the real world outside is aggressively, insultingly sunny.

So without further ado, here are the games I rely on when it’s just too darn hot.

Strange Horticulture (& Strange Antiquities)

Probably the most effective games I’ve found for tricking myself into thinking it’s raining outside, Strange Horticulture and Strange Antiquities have a dim shop interior, and the sound and sight of rain on the window. It never stops raining in Undermere, and this is why I recommend headphones with this game if you are trying to escape the heat! It really does transport you to a cool and rainy Autumn day.

Skyrim

Windhelm in the snow. Screenshot by Coco Michelle

A slightly different case because it’s enormous and I’ve played Skyrim approximately one million times, but in summer I specifically make a beeline for the snowy holds. Windhelm in the snow, or outside Whiterun when a blizzard rolls in. The ambient weather sounds in that game have no right to be as good as they are.

Graveyard Keeper

Screenshot by Brian Gillett-Smith

Not a relaxing game per se, there is soooo much to do and not enough donkey. But Graveyard Keeper has this atmosphere of deep, melancholy autumn that I find enormously comforting when it’s too warm. Everything is amber and ochre which to me is perfect. Graveyard Keeper also keeps me super busy, which takes my mind off everything else.

Dear Esther

Dear Esther is one of the most atmospheric pieces of interactive anything I’ve ever encountered. Scottish coastline in winter, with wind, rain, and complete isolation.

If you’ve never played it through headphones with no other distractions, you’re leaving something on the table.

Stardew Valley

I usually start a new save of Stardew every year around August, in preparation for a cosy autumn, but sometimes I need to head to Pelican Town in June just to hang out on a rainy day, or to shoot the breeze with my fellow villagers during winter when I’ve no crops to harvest.

I’m currently working on a Perfection save (more about that in a future post!) so I’m spending a lot of time there at the moment, and my season has just clicked over to fall. Ideal!

Grimshire

A newer addition to my heat-rotation and I am still slightly in awe of what it does with atmosphere. Dark, folklore-adjacent, and October-coloured in its entire soul, Grimshire feels like a game that was made specifically for people who find summer challenging. I particularly loved the rain sounds in this game, moving from outside to inside is done spectacularly, so headphones are a must!

A word of warning though; this game can get dark pretty quickly. Villagers can and will die, so stick with Stardew if this doesn’t feel like it will be safe.

Coffee Talk

Coffee Talk is in a different register to most of these. It’s cosy-warm rather than cold-atmospheric, but the rain outside the café window is constant and beautiful and it plays through headphones like an ASMR track. I’ve loaded it up in a heatwave more than once simply to sit in that café and listen to the weather.

Night in the Woods

Mae Borowski navigating the specific emotional texture of being in your mid-twenties and not quite knowing what you’re doing, against a backdrop of autumn trees and cold air and a small town that feels like it’s falling apart. Night in the Woods isn’t a cheerful game but it is an honest one, and the season is so present throughout that playing it in a heatwave creates a strange, useful dissonance.

None of this is a particularly efficient solution to a heatwave, but it works for me! With my headphones on and with rain sounds from somewhere that isn't here… I can just about get through until September.

Good luck! 🌧️