3 of the best Christmas-themed video games on PlayStation, Xbox and PC
‘Tis the season to be gaming – and here are three festive favourites to enjoy
Look at your nearest open fire right now and there’s a very good chance you’ll see chestnuts roasting on it. Yep, Christmas is nearly upon us, and I’m here to spread some festive cheer in the form of video game recommendations.
To me, gaming is inherently Christmassy. When you’re younger, the only way you get your hands on a new console tends to be via Santa, and for older gamers, when else in the year are you actually free to kick back for a week and finally make some progress in your backlog?
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Feeling like both a spin-off and sequel to Insomniac’s first Spidey outing, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was one of the highlights of the PS5 launch lineup, and just so happens to take place around Christmas.
While the time of year is admittedly little more than set dressing in terms of the story, which sees Miles having to look after New York on his own with Peter Parker out of town for the holidays, the themes of family and community are firmly in keeping with the season.
Also, as anyone who’s been to New York in December can attest to, the city never looks better than when it’s covered in snow and twinkling with Christmas lights.
The first Marvel’s Spider-Man game had a meatier story, while the sequel clearly wins in the gameplay department due to its dual Spidey setup and expanded moveset. But if we’re talking scenery, swinging around a Manhattan lined with Christmas trees in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is hard to beat.
Batman: Arkham Origins
If batarangs are more your thing than web-slinging, you’ll want to boot up Batman: Arkham Origins – the Arkham series’ answer to Miles Morales’ aforementioned yuletide adventure.
Fairly or not, Arkham Origins is often labelled the black sheep of the series, and unlike the main trilogy, wasn’t developed by Rocksteady. But to disregard it entirely would be a mistake.
As a prequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, you get to see the Caped Crusader during his very early days in the suit, with many of the villains that will go on to occupy his famous rogues gallery also only just getting their starts in Gotham’s criminal underworld.
More importantly though, most of the story takes place on Christmas Eve, and therefore Gotham is blanketed in snow, a la Tim Burton’s Batman Returns.
Bats might be busy trying to stop the likes of Penguin, Bane and Joker from running riot, but he still finds time to take in the sights and wish Alfred a Merry Christmas.
Dead Rising 4
A lot of the best Christmas media couldn’t be less concerned with the cosiness of the season. See: Die Hard and Bad Santa.
Dead Rising 4, in which Frank West has to contend with yet another zombie outbreak, is, like its predecessors, more interested in skewering consumerism than it is in reminding players of the true meaning of the festive season.
However, here’s the thing: the game being set during the holidays means you can mow your way through hordes of zombies dressed as gingerbread men and elves on a reindeer-themed motorbike, and that’s pretty special.
Dead Rising 4’s rebuilt Willamette mall is a no-go zone on account of the rampaging undead, which makes the fact that all the Christmas decorations are still up darkly funny, and while the Dead Rising formula was starting to show its age when this entry originally came out nearly a decade ago, it remains a solid seasonal pick for cynics and grinches alike.
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