Morels: The Hunt 2 is a great outdoors vibe when you're stuck indoors

I did not expect a game about mushrooms to be my personal pick for 2024. I also didn't expect Donald Trump to be re-elected President of the United States. Life really is like a box of chocolates, I suppose: Most of it tastes like crap, but every now and then you bite into something that doesn't suck.

Morels: The Hunt 2 is ostensibly a game about wandering the forest, hunting mushrooms, and as elevator pitches for videogames go, yeah, I've heard better. But it works! Dense, well-realized pastoral settings, excellent weather effects, and very effective audio cues come together to create outstanding outdoor playgrounds, and while hunting mushrooms is the name of the game (literally), you can skip all that and just stroll around snapping a few photos if that's what the moment calls for.

And so I did: My eyes were always open for edible fungus but I sunk a good chunk of my time in the game following the sounds of birds in trees or sloshing around in small ponds looking for frogs and turtles. Which is fine, because it really doesn't matter if the mushroom harvest isn't producing big yields: There are levels to advance through and weekly tasks to complete, but ultimately Morels: The Hunt 2 is about nothing more than chilling in the forest, embracing whatever vibe grabs you in the moment.

It's a real departure from the usual videogame routine, but the relaxed, no-pressure gameplay makes for a wonderful diversion from shooting dudes, stabbing dudes, and blowing dudes up. It's nice to hear a strange noise in a deep, dark forest and instinctively run toward it, rather than away from it, in the hopes of getting a good picture or at the very least seeing something new. Yes, I did once get my ass kicked by a wild dog or wolf or something (it was too dark to tell, and I'd foolishly neglected to bring a flashlight), but because "death" isn't a thing in Morels: The Hunt 2, it was simply a lesson learned (and a bit of mushroom-hunting time lost).

I was also taken by developer Wes Abrams' commitment to the game. He and brothers (and co-developers) Derek and Jason are real-life mushroom hunters themselves, and their passion for the hobby—and the fact that they were "pretty big gamers" themselves back in their younger years—is what inspired them to make the game. And it's neither a throwaway gag nor a quick money grab: They're 100% serious about recreating the experience as accurately as they can for a small but dedicated community of players who want to go outside without, y'know, going outside.

(Which isn't to say the commitment to realism is all-encompassing. There are mythological creatures to be found in the game including a unicorn and, so I'm told, a mermaid, and while I haven't encountered either of those I have 100% seen a flying saucer in the mid-Western sky.)

"We don't make games for the money, we make games because it is something we love," Wes Abrams told me earlier this year. "It has been a blast working on Morels 2. We have had a lot of fun with it and knowing we have a player base looking forward to the release of the game is really motivating."

That's another aspect of Morels: The Hunt 2 I find joyful. The player base is very small and that's obviously a factor, but I've never seen a hint of toxicity or "git gud" nonsense anywhere. It's just people who like huntin' mushrooms occasionally chatting with and offering tips to people who like huntin' mushrooms, not too far removed from the friendly chit-chat exchanged between people passing on a forest walking trail. There's a genuinely refreshing wholesomeness to it.

It's all just so goddamn nice, without surrendering to cloying cuteness or schmaltz, and there are days (weeks, months, what year is it?) when I could use a little shot of that. But none of it would mean much if Morels: The Hunt 2 wasn't also a really good game, and it is. Whether it's a game for you, I cannot say—it's pretty niche stuff—but it's a spot-on execution of a unique idea that has a whole lot more going on than you might expect. Morels: The Hunt 2 will never be a headliner like Cyberpunk 2077 or Elden Ring, but it was a happy highlight for me this year, and I'm happy to make it my personal pick.