Immortal Life
The xianxia-grounded farm management sim Immortal Life is an atmospheric take on the genre, and also a Kotaku favorite—writer Sisi Jiang wrote earlier this year that the game is the best farming sim they’ve played since 2009’s Rune Factory 3.
The game has some role-playing game elements, rewarding you for exploring a smooth, soothing 2.5D map and helping your community. Its strength, Jiang writes, sleeps in “the sheer charm of its worldbuilding…I mean, just look at these beautiful crops. There’s something incredibly meditative about rolling out of bed every morning and shaking your plants until teeny vegetables fall out.” The game is still in early access, meaning it has “some rough edges,” but it also lets you cook eggs fried with tomato, and sometimes that’s more important.
