Wanderstop Review

2025’s been a busy year; why not relax with a cup of tea?

Ivy Road and Annapurna Interactive are proposing just that with Wanderstop – a narrative-centric tea management title. Is this one worth a stop, or should players stick to coffee?

Wanderstop Review

Wanderstop follows the story of Alta, the once-undefeated warrior who has lost her way.

While looking for a master to train her to become unbeatable, she passes out in the forest and ends up at a tea shop. The owner, Boro, helps her out and says that maybe she needs some rest. At this point, Alta goes back to the forest, but her sword is heavy, and so is her body. She doesn’t make it far before collapsing again and returning to the tea shop.

Waking up again, she realizes she can’t even pick her sword up anymore. The strength she once had is gone, and it might not come back.

Just kidding, that’s loser talk, and her ego won’t let that happen.

Alta’s ego keeps pushing her, wanting to make her the best in the world, even though her body has been moved to the point of exhaustion. Ego or not, she cannot make it through the forest, so you have to serve tea and help the shop out to rest that weary body and mind. Once you can pick up your sword again, you can leave.

Said tea shop is called Wanderstop, and I’m not 100% sure how they stay in business. You do serve tea and sometimes other drinks, but you never get paid for any of it. You might get a trinket or a picture or something to hang in Wanderstop, but cash is out of the question.

The only real currency is the tea, and the items you use to make the tea. Interactions boil (heh) down to meeting a customer, making them tea, listening to their story, and moving on to the next chapter.

While simple, Wanderstop’s strong writing and characters will keep you a regular customer.

One of my favorite moments in Wanderstop came with the merchant that set her stall up outside of Wanderstop. While there’s no currency, she would barter for certain items after gifting her tea or chatting with her.

No matter what we said, she always seemed to disagree. Then, when it was time for her to go, she left a little trinket of hers she said was for marketing which we then put in the tea shop for customers to see.

While inside Wanderstop, there are certain spots to hang pictures or place trinkets and plants on tables and shelves. One can customize their shop and spruce things up a bit.

However, when moving to the next season, all trinkets disappear and one needs to go out and find new ones. The same happens with your cool teacups; there were a couple of jack-o-lantern cups that went away after the first season of the game. While one’s pictures stay, the other items are not so lucky.

The other thing that stays the same in Wanderstop is the tea machine. In the center of Wanderstop is a big tree to make all your brews.

It is a whole process of heating the water, picking the right fruits, adding the tea, and getting it to the customer. One learns things quickly, so the only tricky part is remembering the recipes. Some customers want simple drinks with one ingredient, while others want four or more. Also, and each time you drink the tea one gets a memory from Alta’s childhood – a nice bonus.

When not making tea in Wanderstop, one is either gardening or cleaning up outside.

Cleaning up means sweeping or cutting weeds, which gets you new cups or extra trinkets. Farming is easy as well – as long as one follows directions. Later, you get to add mushrooms to your plants for new variations like colors and size.

This drives home the point of the title: Wanderstop is easy, busy work to take a break from all the massive open-world games.

And they absolutely nailed it.

Bug-wise, some items fell through its world – but reloading helped them respawn. There were also a few crashes, but it was likely due to Boro handing us an item – and he was rammed into the corner. Reloading and letting him leave prevented it from happening again. On a small note, Wanderstop could use a jump button as well.

Wanderstop sets out to deliver a relaxing narrative experience – and absolutely nails it. Needless to say, it’s the barista life for us in Wanderstop.

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