The Perfect Cozy Game Pairings For Our Favorite Comfort Shows

Earlier this year, Netflix executives asked screenwriters to write dialogue that has characters “announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” The communication led to a fairly muted backlash. Yes, it was offensive to anyone who loved (or made) a prestige show. But also, it’s what we all were doing.

While we wouldn’t recommend throwing on a Christopher Nolan flick or distracting yourself from a prestigious game like Red Dead Redemption 2, there are times and places to bask in such entertainment multitasking. For this, Inverse’s Entertainment and Gaming staff have you covered — with our curated picks for games and movies we think are perfect for a cozy, if distracted evening.

Trekking Across Timelines

So, while I’m all about multitasking, as an elder millennial, I think I find this question slightly perplexing. When I was coming up, listening to Blur’s “Song 2” while screaming at my friends to stop “screen peeking” during an intense GoldenEye 007 64 session was the pinnacle of bliss. Today, if I’m looking at my phone while watching a show, it’s probably because I’m mindlessly Googling facts about said show.

That said, I guess I can think of one combo that works particularly well: The long-running mobile game Star Trek: Timelines is fun to mess around with while watching episodes of Star Trek that I’ve seen a million times. That game lets you make crews from all the different eras and send them on RPG-style missions. The gameplay can get a little old, but the art is incredible, and if you’re watching Voyager’s “Year of Hell” for the 100th time, it’s fun to also be sending “Year of Hell” Capt. Janeway on a zany mission with Capt. Pike from Strange New Worlds. Putting a little Star Trek in your Star Trek? Now that’s cozy. — Ryan Britt, entertainment writer/associate editor

Drinking The Kool-Aid

I’m a weirdo and think cult documentaries are so relaxing to watch. So Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God is an easy pick for a TV show I’d throw on when I need something familiar but also fascinating. My obsession with cults is the same reason Far Cry 5 is one of the few games I’ve played in my entire life, and I’ve probably played it five times.

Its storyline has all the hallmarks of a great cult story from the drug use, the brainwashing, and the appeals to the media, all things Mother God embraced too. Most importantly, the cult’s music absolutely slaps: The hymns are absolute earworms, and as you move through different phases in the game, they get remixed into alt-country bangers and then haunting hypno-pop numbers that will keep you humming fictional propaganda all day long. It meshes perfectly with Mother God’s internet-era preaching that blended modern-day pop culture into what is clearly just a high-control manipulation technique. — Dais Johnston, entertainment writer

Sex & The Wigglytuff

I am quietly obsessed with life sims with cute animals, the more endearing the art style, the better. Recently, though, I’ve spent hours zoning out while playing Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Paired with a long-running, lightly serialized sitcom — currently, that’s Sex and the City — and that’s my entire day done and dusted.

I love to lose myself in the rhythm of the tasks and side quests in Mystery Dungeon; that flow state matches up perfectly with the easy (often predictable) beats of slice-of-life comedy. There’s comfort in the familiar, and as I’m not much of a gamer, the lower the stakes, the better. — Lyvie Scott, entertainment writer

Just One More Piece

First of all, as someone who believes in preserving the sanctity of the movie-viewing experience, I have to object to doing anything else while you’re watching TV, unless it’s reality TV, a John Mulaney comedy special, or a rewatch of Friends. That being said, I’m not above scrolling on my phone while my show is on. But if we’re talking about a specific pairing of a game and a TV show, the closest I’ll do is put on an episode of Columbo, open a bottle of wine, and a jigsaw puzzle.

During COVID, I got really into this activity, because there’s nothing cozier than watching Peter Falk’s grizzled detective solve murder cases while you solve your own puzzle. There’s also something satisfying about completing a puzzle with your own hands too, a sentiment that I think Lt. Columbo would also share. Maybe that’s why I enjoy it — it makes me feel closer to the detective I admire so much onscreen. — Hoai-Tran Bui, entertainment editor

Going On A Double Date

You might not expect this pairing of Love Is Blind and Date Everything, but upon second inspection, the two fit just right. Love Is Blind is about the earnestness of putting your heart on the line to see if a stranger can live up to your fairy-tale dreams. Date Everything highlights how even ordinary household objects can hold romantic prospects and takes this premise to absurd lengths.

Both are light and airy, and unfortunately both have a lot of long, boring parts in the middle, between the getting-to-know-each-other and the conclusions. But paired together, Date Everything’s midgame grind blots out all the less-than-interesting couples that are doomed to break up, leaving only the sweetness and the drama. — Shannon Liao, games editor

Jimbo & A Stodgy Sponge

I’m clearly not alone in feeling a bit icky in condoning the splitting of a viewer’s attention. For one, our attentions are precious and divided enough — it’s probably not all that good for our well-being. Second, I find it’s a bit disrespectful to the creators. They work so hard to keep our interest, we ought to respect that — unless, of course, their work stresses us out.

This is exactly what Great British Baking Show does for me. It’s a great big dough ball of anxiety. I can more easily sit through a jump-scare-heavy slasher than watch the clock ticking down on a bake, the cuts of cake disasters speeding up, the pained faces of the contestants turning to desperation and despair. I’m super into this show for the reveals and kindly British banter. The rest requires a distraction.

And what better than a game that similarly frustrates and stresses you with impossible odds, disastrous bad luck, and doomed strategies? I’m talking, of course, about Balatro, the most excellent poker roguelike that exposes all the frustrations of gambling alongside the addictive need to continue. At the end of a good GBBS and Balatro session, I might expect to be frustrated, divided, and stressed. Instead, the overlap offers an invigorating little sprint of viewing pleasure. Pure entertainment. — Tyghe Trimble, editor-in-chief

Pi-Crossing Into The Supernatural

It might not be traditionally cozy, but if I’m looking for a comfort show, I usually go for reruns of The X-Files. It’s a show that terrified me too much to watch as a kid, so maybe part of the comfort is in being able to enjoy it at all now, and it was on enough in the house when I was growing up that it still feels nostalgic.

In a strange way, that’s made it a nice pairing for my recently discovered love of Picross games. I ignored them for a while, thinking their style of numerical logic puzzle just wasn’t for me, only to find that they’re incredibly soothing when I tried them out. And regardless of how difficult the puzzles get, their structure remains the same, each one feeling just as familiar as an episode of procedural TV. I’ve recently been sucked into Mosaic of the Strange, which mixes picross with a point-and-click murder mystery, which makes for an even better complement to The X-Files. — Robin Bea, games writer

Monster Mash

Pokémon versus Digimon is one of those age-old questions, hotly debated on the cracked concretes of playgrounds in the 1990s. But in 2025, the answer is: Why not both? It’s been a banner year for both the monster catchers, between Digimon Story: Time Stranger and Pokémon Legends: Z-A. And watching the original Digimon series, in tandem with playing the newest Pokémon, gives off a weird kind of synergy.

Both are about adorable creatures and bizarre interdimensional travel — and both will, at some point, make you question the meaning of life. (Don’t worry, you’ll only have a few minutes of existential dread.)

But Digimon complements Z-A remarkably well. It’s the kind of show you can put on in the background, and a quippy line might draw your attention — all while you grind out filling up the Pokedex and beating down every trainer in the Battle Zone. However, it’s also fascinating to see the core differences between Pokémon and Digimon, and how they both approach the idea of befriending little weirdo creatures. There’s a reason these two series have stuck around for so long, and each gives you that warm fuzzy feeling in a different way. — Hayes Madsen, games writer