2mo ago

Favourite games to play around Christmas time?

Lots of people have traditions for their favourite Christmas songs and Christmas movies, but I don’t see games get talked about as much. It makes sense, there’s not many Christmas video games, but does anyone have anything they like to play specifically around the holidays? For me, I always go back and play some Elder Scrolls games. I also tend to play a lot of racing games around Christmas (tradition with my dad), and of course most of my playtime in hockey games are during the winter. Does anyone else have anything they like to revisit, or any genres they save, for this time of year? I’d love to hear about it

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Stardew Valley is a great Christmas revisit

Skyrim is the most obvious one - it just seems more appropriate in the winter.
Ditto The Long Dark, though it's notably not festive.
When it's really cold, and especially at night, I sometimes get an urge to play Little Inferno - it's sort of like one of those old fireplace videos, except with added surrealism and silliness.
- The Long Dark is not for everyone but for me it's awesome
  
  I really shouldn't like it, since games in which you die repeatedly generally just irritate me, but something about it keeps me coming back. And dying.
  
  I really don’t like to play it, but I love the colours and art style!
- Skyrim is usually what I start with for Christmas gaming, before going backwards in the series

I love the Army Men games as a flawed but nostalgic childhood series and I've loved the idea of it ever since
Army Men Sarge's Heroes has two Christmas levels, but the last one is the final boss where you fight a dreaded poodle. It's flawed but I usually dust it off and give it a play. The Mean Greens also has a neat toy train level.
I was super stoked when Rising Storm 2 had their christmas event come out in 2018. It was a great mix of serious and fun gameplay with the army men concept done with a level of polish I've never seen. Before the game died out I had a ton of fun for several christmasses!
I have fond ~~ptsd~~ memories of being a radioman following the green faction commander around as he calls in artillery strikes. We got pinned down behind some legos. The game mode keeps all the base game sound effects so when the commander peeked out and took a hit I got to listen to the long agonising death sounds while fighting for a kid's craft table lol
Completely unrelated but Hitman is also a go to. The Paris christmas level is amazingly well decorated
- Funny you mention Hitman, that’s been what I’ve been playing most this year, against my typical traditions.
  Slightly off topic but if you combine my hours between the three modern Hitman games (since they’ve combined the three into one game now), it’s my second-most played game of all time

I don't know exactly why, but I always get back to Jackie Chan Stuntmaster when Christmas is near.
I have been doing that since I am a kid (possibly not all Christmas days) and I have no intentions to change that :p

Towerfall is a massive hit at my annual holiday party. Specifically the Nintendo Switch version (with 6-player maps).
- Ah yes, the crown jewel of the Ouya!

I tend to find myself renewing my RuneScape membership around this time of year.
I also just picked up Titanfall 2 from the Steam Winter sale and played through the campaign and holy cow, it was worth the $3 I paid for it.
- Agreed, Titanfall 2 holds up incredibly well. Pretty much looks and plays like it came out this year IMO

Shenmue
Well normally I play it every December but not this year as my Dreamcast and PS4 were put into storage and I haven't had time (or space) to get them back out.

I just started playing Potionomics (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874490/Potionomics/), and I'm loving it, chill and easy to pick up but with some depth, the animation and art is great

Satisfactory usually pulls me back for some Ficsmas construction. Though since v1.0 released I've been enjoying a lot more than that.

Usually around Christmas time it's vacations and steam sale times and sometimes beach trips with my Switch and phone. So it depends a lot. But, also because of that, there are some games I played on the past in this time of the year that kinda got stuck with holidays vibes because of it. Some kf them are Doom, Quake and Monster Hunter. I think I'll be playing Pokemon Platinum this year too, on my phone.

FTL is the holiday game here, and lately Warcraft II after the GOG sale

Wurm Unlimited tends to be my go-to winter game to get stuck into.

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