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What is it about Christmas in games that draws us in as much as it does? You may or may not have noticed that the staff here at 2Game is in a bit of a Christmas mood nowadays, so we felt it might be handy to try and quantify that feeling. Here, we'll be taking a gander at what makes for a successful Christmas video game or event. At least, we'll make an attempt at doing so. Since it's all fairly subjective, though, we're sure that more than one interpretation can be made!
The big question we'd like to ask is - how does a video game capture the magic of Christmas? Before even attempting to answer that, we've got to try and figure out what makes a game Christmassy in the first place, of course. Let's get on with it!
Holiday Cheer in Video Games
At surface-level, it seems quite obvious what makes something Christmassy, doesn't it? Tacky, colorful lights, an abundance of Christmas trees (duh), red and green, a snowy cover to top it all off. Thing is, you can tick all of those boxes and still come up with something drab and soulless in the end. These "features" - if we can call them that - do help, but establishing a Christmas atmosphere in a video game often goes beyond that. One of our favorite examples of a game that does feel right is Batman: Arkham Origins. It doesn't make too much of a fuss over the fact that it's Christmas. It's pretty coincidental, but it does end up playing into the grand scheme of things far as Arkham Origins' story goes. Regardless, there's something special to it that really immerses you into winter-time Gotham. That, as you may have guessed, is its atmosphere.
A Christmas video game's atmosphere comes from elements such as Christmas trees, snow, and the like, yes, but also from a number of other things. It's the interaction of a wide variety of elements that must all come together to make the players' experience precisely the one that devs wish to convey. It's not a simple thing to do this, which is why there aren't all that many games that truly feel Christmassy. Assets alone do not make for the feel of a game, and it's subjectively difficult to quantify what does. After all, video games are more than the mathematical sum of their parts. What we can do, at least, is show good examples of this being pulled off!
How to Make a Game feel Christmassy?
Just a few days back, we wrote about games that offer awesome Christmas events, and that really made us think about this wider topic we're discussing here. This year, our favorite Christmastime video game events are that of Killing Floor 2 and Hitman 2 - two games that are well-known for their penchant for awesome seasonal content. It just so happens that these are perfect examples of capturing the magic of Christmas in what are otherwise decidedly non-festive games.
To keep things simple, we can boil this down to a few crucial features:
- timed events
- festive objectives
- Christmas-related assets
Think about it. Would Christmas even be interesting if it weren't a real-life timed event? We think not. "Full-time" Christmas games like Arkham Origins are great, but few and far between, sad as that might be. It's far easier to pull off a good seasonal event because festive objectives and Christmassy game assets can absolutely turn a game upside-down for a while. Devs of these two titles understand how to mesh all of this together into something that delivers a holiday feel, even though it's clearly not as simple as revamping two aspects of a game for a while.
The Killing Floor school of thought is particularly effective at this. Tripwire makes it snow, turns Zeds into Christmastime monstrosities, and lets players loose at them with new cosmetics, game objectives, and other assorted goodies. It's a simple concept at heart, but goodness does it work.
What's the bottom-line with Christmas-themed Games, then?
Frankly, they're pretty difficult to pull off. Whereas there are too many Christmas movies to keep track of, games don't really face that problem. At all. Perhaps this is related to the notion of games being violent by default - something that doesn't mesh well with Christmas itself. Then again, both Hitman 2 and Killing Floor 2 are quite violent, and their events did make them appropriately festive. It's a curious thing to think about! We'll come to the bottom of it one day, we're sure.
Some games simply lend themselves well to Christmas, and it comes down to devs being in tune with their desired audience, and with the holiday itself. If it's pure Christmas cheer you're after this year, you can't go wrong with the games we mentioned above. The atmosphere is there, even if it is quite difficult to describe what makes it work the way it does. That's the magic of gaming, we suppose! A whole lot of moving parts coming together in a way that's oftentimes quite unexpected.
We'd like to use this opportunity to point you in the direction of our awesome Winter Sale. If you'd like to read about some highlight deals, we've got not one but TWO articles dealing with this exact topic. They'll provide you with all the guidance you could need for our best deals and discounts. Happy deal-hunting, and merry Christmas!
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