Running out of games to play during your holiday break? We've got a few ideas for you.
The holiday season is finally upon us. While this gives a lot of us time to return to long-neglected hobbies - whether that means spending all your extra time reading books, watching movies or buying loads of gifts - it’s also a great time to just unwind with a controller in your hands and a hot cup of cocoa within arm’s reach. Gaming doesn’t skip the holidays. In fact, it embraces it. Plenty of live-service videogames are running holiday events to spread the season's merriment (and retain player wallets), making them great picks to get us into that lovely end-of-year mood.
We’ve got loads of cosy winter-themed games we love playing around this time of year, if only because they’re the perfect games to curl up with on the couch during these long and empty afternoons - fuzzy blanket and hot chocolate optional, but recommended. Here are the 10 cosiest winter-themed games you should check out during the holidays:
Fortnite
Hear me out: Fortnite is a fantastic game to play during the holidays, and there’s a strong case for it to be at the top of this entire list. The battle royale game just kicked off Chapter 4 with an all-new map, which means that returning players are experiencing all these new locations at the same time as newcomers. The new map also has several snow-themed Points of Interest that let you slide around like cartoon characters walking on ice, which makes for a ton of chaotic fun when enemy players start popping up.
Winterfest 2022 has also just kicked off, spawning massive presents all around the map that gift you random items to use in battle. There’s also an entirely new in-game tab with a Yule Log that rewards XP points and a free gift to open every day from now until Christmas. You can say a lot of things about Fortnite, but you can’t say that it ever underdelivers.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing’s seasons change in real time, and that makes it a pretty cosy game to play during the holidays. Since seasonal changes bring new item rotations to the shop and snow to the island, you can wander about renovating and expanding your fish collection to your heart’s content - and since it’s on the Nintendo Switch, you can do it all on the go. Perfect road trip gaming material. New Horizons also does a Toy Day event on Christmas Eve that lets you give presents to your villagers (make sure to wrap them!), when you’re not shaking baubles out of trees or putting on a Santa costume.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Skyrim is one of the cosiest games ever made, even if it doesn’t look like it at first. The game’s opening hour launches you into a grim world filled with magic, dragons and corpses aplenty - but right after that, the story takes a backseat to all the exploration your heart yearns for. Skyrim is a lovely place to explore even with its now-dated visuals. The flickering lanterns and hearths in small pubs and underground tombs call to mind the warmth of the Yule Log, a feeling that never fails to bring us tranquility during the holidays.
Skyrim's snowy landscapes feel immersive and strangely inviting, despite all the threats they hold. Its plentiful quests and characters keep us engaged, though they reside a comfortable distance from the beaten path at all times. Skyrim and the holidays - they go together like fries and ice cream.
Frostpunk
Frostpunk is built around the harsher elements of winter - a season that might not be as warm and joyful as we’d like it to be all the time. It is, however, an extremely addictive game to play over the holidays. This game has players build and maintain an entire city in the wake of a global neverending winter. You’ll have to explore outside the city for survivors and resources, build up the city from scratch and make difficult choices as you strive to expand, such as deciding what kind of leader you want to be to the city’s people. If you’re looking for something to play with the family, Frostpunk is also available in boardgame form! It’s also getting a sequel - though a release date hasn’t been announced.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Spider-Man: Miles Morales just oozes Christmas, from its holiday-centered story to the snow-capped skyscrapers of New York City. Its jaw-dropping visuals continue to provide solid eye candy, and we love dropping in during the holidays just to zip around the city as Spider-Man. The game’s story follows young Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man to grace New York City since his mentor Peter Parker first donned the webbed mask. After Peter leaves the city for a workation of sorts, Miles struggles to balance his civilian life with the harsh responsibilities of protecting the citizens of an entire city - while living up to the Spider-Man they already know and love at the same time. This campaign is short and sweet, making it the perfect game to play if you’ve managed to get a week off this month.
Batman: Arkham Origins
Is that another superhero Christmas game I see? Even when it’s draped with red-and-green Christmas lights and buried underneath a thick blanket of white snow, Gotham City’s shadowy creatures and gothic roots continue to creep through in Arkham Origins. Eight years before Arkham Asylum, a much less experienced Batman has to fend off eight of the world’s greatest assassins after a bounty gets placed on him by the crime boss Black Mask. With all these new faces plunging the city in chaos, Batman is going to have to do a lot of growing up very quickly.
Arkham Origins often gets thought of as a skippable entry in the Arkham franchise, seeing as its a prequel that doesn’t get referenced too often in the main trilogy, and was developed by an entirely separate development team. We beg to differ - Origins has loads going for it, such as its uniquely holiday-themed atmosphere, great boss battles and the fun but entirely broken Electrocutioner’s Gloves you pick up during the campaign. Plus, you get a neat look at Gotham before the events of the main trilogy, and see how much it has yet to change.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5 changes seasons each week, but this month is a little special. To celebrate the festive season, the game is bringing in an event called the Horizon Holidays that lets players partake in Secret Santa, try out a new Festival Playlist and experience holiday-themed changes in the game world such as Mulegé’s Horizon Wonderland. You’ll also be able to find an Ice Rink Stadium, all sorts of holiday decorations across Mexico and snowman collectibles. Holiday-themed cosmetics are also returning, and more cars like the 2020 Lamborghini Sián Roadster will debut this month.
Forza Horizon 5 is an undeniably gorgeous and extremely newcomer-friendly racing game that seems like perfect casual fodder for any and all car enthusiasts looking to pick up a controller this month.
Minecraft
If you dream it, you can build it. If you’re looking to just hole up for a few weeks and lose yourself in another world, you could do a lot worse than Minecraft. The sandbox game has endless possibilities, all of which keep us coming back for more. Will we ever finish building our mansion by the hill? Will we finally defeat the Ender Dragon? Are we going to get that diamond pickaxe in the underground caves this time, or fall into lava like usual?
If you’re looking for more in-your-face winter vibes, don’t forget that the game also has snow biomes - and it’s the perfect time of the year to build a little wooden house made of logs from scratch.
Until Dawn
A bunch of teenagers come out to a snowy cabin in the woods… and get viciously murdered, one by one. What’s more Christmas-y than that? Until Dawn puts you in control of a group of eight friends who suddenly find themselves fighting for survival on Blackwood Mountain. Your choices in the game have consequences on the paths they take and whether they even survive the story. You can, however, find clues to help them survive in the form of Totems scattered throughout the game.
Until Dawn is by far the best of Supermassive Games’ interactive horror games, and I strongly feel it's also one of the cosiest in the genre. There is no traditional co-op mode here like the Dark Pictures anthology, but it’s fun to pass a controller back and forth with different people being in charge of playing different characters. Own your choices and the journeys these characters go on, and embrace the brutal cold that lies outside Blackwood Mountain’s lodge. If only the cold was the only thing out there to be afraid of...
Stardew Valley
One of my favourite games of all time is Stardew Valley, the gold standard to which cosiness in videogames is measured. This Harvest Moon-like sim game begins with the player inheriting a plot of land from their grandfather, and moving out to a rustic town called Stardew Valley. As the seasons go by, you’ll develop your new farm plot into a bountiful place filled with coffee plants and blueberries, greenhouses and pet houses, hay-filled barns and runaway truffle pigs - and the bigger your profits go, the further you can afford to take it to where it needs to be. Fall in love, plant cabbages and slay monsters in the dark mines below. That’s what Stardew Valley is all about.
For bonus Christmas points: Whenever winter rolls around, your crops wither and you suddenly have a lot more time on your hands to engage with the townspeople, hunt for resources in the mines and explore the valley. Despite the barren snow-laden visuals the game presents you with during this season, it’s really at its cosiest in the winter.
Bonus Christmas game: Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
Despite their well-documented bugs and technical woes, the new Pokemon entries really do feel like the gaming equivalent of comfort food this time of year. Snowy biomes feel extra special to traipse around during the holidays, but making friends with new Pokemon, fighting your way to the Elite Four and exploring all of Paldea's new open-world locations make for extremely cosy on-the-go gaming too.