Game: Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch & Switch 2 (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer | Publisher: Hyper Games
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $19.99 | UK £17.59 | EU € 19,50
Release Date: April 27th, 2026
Review code used, with many thanks to Dead Good Media.
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is the second game by Hyper Games to be based in the wonderful world of the Moomins. However, it is not a sequel or prequel to Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley, and you don’t need to have played the first game, or even have any knowledge of Moomintroll and his friends, to enjoy this offering. Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is inspired by Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter, and if you want to find out more about Moominland, its characters and locations, check out Moomin.com
Yvonne gave us her initial thoughts on Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth via the Steam demo last year and they were positive. Will the full game be as enchanting as the demo promised?
Go grab your mittens and scarf, and let’s go looking for spring in Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth.
Sleepy Beginnings
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth starts with a short, interactive cutscene, showing Moomintroll’s family getting ready for their winter sleep. Moominpappa is loading wood into the log burner and covering the furniture with sheets, and Moominmamma is tucking Moomintroll into bed, explaining that Moomins always sleep through winter, that’s just the way it is.
As Moomintroll falls to sleep, he dreams of the coming spring, but before long, something startles him awake. In the dark house, Moomintroll has to be brave and investigate the noise, and it’s here that you start your Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth adventure.
Playing as Moomintroll, you’ll need to find items around the dark and cold house before going outside. The objects needed are highlighted, but you’ll have to do things in order, for example, getting some light so you can see the object properly, in order to pick it up.
Once outside, Moomintroll discovers the Lady of the Cold has blanketed the whole of Moominvalley in snow, making it feel very different to the place he knows. Being buffeted by harsh winds and feeling lonely, Moomintroll goes exploring and discovers not everyone sleeps through winter. With Too-ticky’s guidance, Moomintroll embarks on a quest to prepare the Great Winter Bonfire and help bring back spring.
Exploring Moominland
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is a story-driven adventure, interspersed with fetch quests, environmental puzzles and mini-games. As one task completes, you are led to another, and so on. In addition, there are a handful of side tasks, most of which will be completed without too much extra effort as you and Moomintroll wander round Moominvalley.
There are some lovely details as you explore the valley. I particularly liked how the characters make tracks in the snow as they move. The music, which is predominately piano based, changes as you move between areas and beautifully adds to the experience.
If you are unfamiliar with Moominvalley, Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth comes with a map. It’s not overly detailed, so there is still scope to get lost in the caves, but key locations and the paths to get to them are shown. The map updates as you go to new areas, and you can also click on an area to get a guiding finger during gameplay. There are no fast travel options, but you will uncover shortcuts, and occasionally, the game will cut ahead to the location needed.
At certain points, Moomintroll will have a question mark above his head, which means you’ll get a hint. Unfortunately, it’s not as useful as it sounds, as generally you are told that you don’t have the right tool, but occasionally, it does provide reassurance that you’re on the right path.
The quest log keeps track of your progress against all the different tasks. This is especially useful for the side quests, which can get forgotten in the flow of following the main objective. Unfortunately, you can’t set a quest to appear on the screen, but there are pop-ups as objects are collected or tasks completed.
Gameplay
The controls are intuitive, and interaction points are given on screen. Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth played well on all Switch consoles, in docked and handheld modes, with the text large enough to read on the Switch Lite, even without the ‘use large text’ option.
Apart from some of the dialogue boxes being cut off by the edge of the screen and a weird whiteout when I found the wolves, there were no game-breaking issues. Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth autosaves regularly, and there are several game slots to allow multiple playthroughs.
There is no clock or time in which to complete tasks, but Moomintroll will occasionally go to sleep to progress the story. Overall, my Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth adventure took 8 hours to complete, with just one side task outstanding.
Very young gamers might find roaming around the dark house a little scary, and there is a rather sad scene near the beginning.
Conclusion
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is a heart-warming and enchanting story of courage and helping others, set in the wintry lands of Moominvalley. The artwork is beautiful, and the script was very funny in places. There are some scenes which were scarier and sadder than I was expecting, and the ending was a little prolonged, but overall a wonderful adventure.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 
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