Team Fortress 2
*6 Players
Like with Scream Fortress, it's a pretty cut and dry plan of playing the yearly Smissmas maps for both Casual and MvM (on Potato.tf).
And like last time, the 6 Player limit is only for casual and for MvM servers we can't host ourselves. It might not be possible to set up, but if we do, then the door opens to uncapped MvM.
Green Army Men Christmas Special
6 Players per Squad
While neutered after having been retroactively tied to a DLC, fighting as toy soldiers still remains a fun holiday tradition. For those looking for a more casual dip into Rising Storm 2, it's the perfect time of year.
There's also the Winter War, and the all of 7 people that play that on December 6th, but it's winter-themed, so it counts.
Streets of Rogue - Christmas Chunk Packs
4 Players
Just like with Halloween, the most fun immersive sim stealth entropy roguelike chaos theory simulator has both Christmas/winter chunk packs (to change up normal runs) and at least one Christmas Campaign.
Plus, it's a lot easier to make a Santa custom character than you could some monster for Halloween, but I guess the game already provided that with Zombies and Vampires.
Garry's Mod
32 Players
There's a lot of different ways this could go.
Currently, the only plan that somewhat exists is to use one of the snowball fight mods and have fun for maybe 15 minutes, and then if there's interest in Gmod in general, then there's plenty of seasonal maps for the mainstay gamemodes (Prop Hunt, TTT, etc.).
But, with a decent amount of Winter and Christmas maps, models, weapons, etc. etc. on the Workshop, it feels like more can be done. Therefore, this is listed here as more of a statement of possibility. Might just amount to a few Santas blasting Combine soldiers on a wave map with ice magic, but there's room to piece together something else if people are interested.
Mario Party
4 Players
Again, there's a few different Mario Party games with seasonally-appropriate boards, but Mario Party 3 will likely be the game of choice, due to the apparent ease of connecting with the N64 netplay clients. That being said, the door will be left open for the Gamecube titles, as there's a custom Dolphin build for those as well.
Duke Nukem 3D: Nuclear Winter
I Dunno, Lol
The worst of the bunch when it comes to Duke Nukem 3D's expansions, but you know: fuck it. It's still Douk after all. The actual method to play this is as-yet-to-be decided, but Rednukem and NetDuke32 should both provide servicable experiences despite still being P2P Lockstep Netcode.
Killing Floor Twisted Christmas
6 Players
Christmas Zeds, at least 3 Holiday maps, and a bucketful of various winter ones, it's simply just Killing Floor but for Christmas. Fun game that's worth playing regardless of the time of year, although again: it's going to be a capital B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Bitch to set up properly, especially since it's still yet to work on the aarch64 server.
Golf With Your Friends
12 Players
Oddly enough, despite having no built-in winter courses, the Christmas Jam on the Workshop seems to be a lot more fruitful than the Halloween one (a theme that could've pulled from Haunted or Twilight). Slumming it through those mods is the current plan.
Duck Game
8 Players
Winter maps and winter hats. Not much else to say beyond that: it's Duck Game, it's already a fun time, and the snow/Christmas maps get the same charm and attention to detail as anything else in the game/on the Workshop.
Duck Game Xmas Collection
Unreal Tournament 2004
32 Players
The obligatory "game people already want to play but now Christmas" pick. Many other shooters can fit the role here, many of them have more Christmas maps to pick from (I still prefer UT99), but UT2k4 is what the people want and it's what they get.
Saints Row 4
2 Players
The game has sat on the list of potential co-op game for a while, both this and SR3 (and SR2 if the performance issues could ever be fixed). With Christmas rolling around, it's a good chance to play some DLC I never got the chance to try, and maybe crack the lid on playing the full base games as well.
Plus, it's playable online with the GOG Version, so like, video games.
Left 4 Dead 2
4 Players
If there's one game that can really do it big for Christmas, it's L4D2. Plenty of mods tie together Christmas Weapons, Maps, Zombies, Special Infected, so on and so forth. In preperation, I'll do my best to try to get 5+ Player working on the server, but at least custom maps definitely work at this point.
And the best part is, even if we run out of bespoke winter maps, there's texture replacers like Winter Wonderland that make way more maps fit the season.
Left 4 Dead 2 Christmas Collection
Crypt of the Necrodancer
8 Players
Visually, only a couple of skin mods exist for the game, and snow/ice-themed dungeons are mostly puzzles, but it's Crypt of the Necrodancer: the strong point is music, and things can be tied together with a selection of seasonally appropriate musak.
A list hasn't been made yet, but many can probably be pulled straight from DaMusakShack.
Neverwinter Nights
255 Players
Straightforward, I don't know how many--if there is any at all--Christmas-themed mods there are for Neverwinter Nights, but between custom assets and what's carried back/over from Icewinder Dale, there's plenty of winter-themed modules for anyone looking to play RPGs this holiday season.
Tooth and Tail
4 Players
Similar song and dance as the rest: it's really more just a matter of wanting to get this game played more often, and there's simply a good number of winter-appropriate maps to make it somewhat seasonal. Tooth and Tail in general is a pretty fun Soviet Furry Pikmin RTS game, and it usually only costs a couple bucks on-sale, so why not.
Counter-Strike
32 Players
This one's hard to pin down. There's Christmas maps, Christmas gameplay mods (e.g. snowball fights), there's even Christmas flavors for sub-mods like Zombie Escape. It's also not hard set between Counter-Strike or Counter-Strike Source, and potentially even Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
This section will be filled out with options once it gets collected and it'll refined as people decide on what they like, but the takeaway is that there's a lot for whatever people feel like playing with in Counter-Strike.
Worms Armageddon
6 Players
The easiest game to add holiday shit too: just use any Christmas image as a map, simple as. Could also probably pull in the /vm/ thread if we're hurting for players, but we fill slots quick with Worms.
Minecraft
100,000 Players
Like the other highly modded games on the list, there's a few different ways to approach Mincraft as a Winter/Christmas game.
There's holiday mini games, Adventure maps that are seasonally-appropriate, and even the option of playing Survival can be executed in a few different ways.
Below will later be filled out with select Adventure Maps, but if the options above sound interesting, then sections for them will be added too.
Rocket League
4-8 Players
Simple and straightforward: either play the mode that switches out the ball for a hockey puck, or try out some of the stage and mode remixes that occasionally come with the yearly "Frosty Fest."
Most I can add is something I'll repeat for a couple of games on this list: for those that didn't buy it on Steam when it was possible, the F2P version can be downloaded from the EGS via Legendary or Heroic.
Fall Guys
4 Players
If there was a time to play something uber-casual, Christmas is it. It's about what you can expect: there's occasioally a gift-themed side mode, there's some winter stages thrown into the mix, and there's some winter outfits to fit the season with. Just simple fun, and Legendary/Heroic can be used to avoid the EGS client altogether to play the game.
In addition to playing in public games in a party, there is the option to play private sessions of select minigames, but they do come with minimum player requirements.
Snow Bros
2 Players
One of the few winter arcade games, Snow Bros is one of those games that's similar to Bubble Bobble but also not at all. Basically, wrap dudes in snowballs and then crash them into each other. Fun little run through 50 different stages.
Also, the grandaddy of Halloween's Nightmare in the Dark.
King Arthur's Gold
32 Players
To preface, this one might be a bit of a bust.
In normal gameplay, KAG is a sidescrolling hack and slash platformer, where two teams seek to capture each other's flags. The gimmick is that the Builder class is able to create walls, bridges, doors, and so on in order to create a defensive castle.
The reason it might be a bust is because, while the devs do enable a holiday/winter mode, it has often taken until right before Christmas for it to be enabled. Could still be able to squeeze some time out of it, mainly if one considers the week leading up to New Year's to be part of the "Christmas Afterglow," but there's also the option to try to use a Christmas texture pack if the game sounds interesting enough on its own.
Apex Legends - Winter Express
3 Players
Surprisingly, one of the few on this list with a holiday-exclusive, unique gamemode to offer.
The gimmick with the Winter Express is simple: on each round, players fight over the titular train and try to capture it as it pulls into a different station. Each round lasts 90 seconds, so the whole thing is pretty rapid-fire.
Of course, there's also some interest in my mind about checking in on the game again. Apex was a battle royale I actually tolerated, and bits of the map do get somewhat "jolly-fied," so I'd be curious in checking out that again as well.
Overcooked 2
4 Players
Most people will already know Overcooked. The gimmick is simple: cook dishes and make sure you can serve them on clean plates. Sounds simple, but as recipes get more complex, counterspace gets filled, and the stages themselves take on wacky and wild forms, it certainly becomes a fun little challenge.
For winter specifically, the devs have been surprisingly generous with adding festive-themed maps. From the Winter Wonderland pack comes 5 holiday-remixed levels based on ones taken from the game's DLCs, and Kevin's Christmas Cracker adds 5 wholly new ones into the mix, all for free.
Quake
32 Players
Jesus fucking Christ.
106 Maps across 6 Map Jams, along with a straggler in the form of the 13 Tombs of the Brillian Dynasty.
That's without getting into any Snow maps that might also fit just for being Winter-esque.
AND
FUCKING AND
That's STILL before getting to any possibility of plaiyng some Quakeworld with the bevy of winter-themed maps that exists for Deathmatch as well. I mean, sure, UT2k4 exists for that on this list, but holy fuck it just feels like mentioning in the wake of all this Quakemas GIRTH.
Mauled Deathmatch
Enter the Grinch
Doom
32-255 Players
Sven Co-op
32 Players
Barotrauma
16 Players
Fuck you: there's a Santa suit mod, a Christmas Coca-Cola sub, and the waters are icy. Therefore, we're playing Barotrauma sometime in the Holidays.
For Honor
2-8 Players
Honestly, the holiday mode is both fun and a bit shit at the same time. Let's take a deliberately paced medieval combat game, and let's chuck them out onto thin ice so they can chuck each other into the water.
I'd say it'd be fun for about 10-20 minutes before becoming beyond frustrating, but that's For Honor year-round, lol.
Ultimate Chicken Horse
4-255(?)
Normally, UCH only has the Iceberg map for potentially-seasonal levels to pick from, but this is roughly the time of year when the developers request community maps to be made and featured.
While lacking in the novel gimmicks of full-fledged developer levels, community maps are still poised to introduce a lot of unique layouts that neverless introduce new challenges to platform through and place platforms within.
Project Zomboid
126 Players
Out of all the ways a "completable" map could be in Project Zomboid, a Christmas Village isn't how I expected it to happen. Nevertheless, here it is. The goal is simple: fight your way to the end. Being Zomboid, there's no ending and it's just inserted into the world, but it's still meant to be a linear gauntlet.
SWAT 4
10 Players
For those that haven't played it, SWAT 4 tries to capture a tactical experience of taking down criminals while following the proper rules of engagement. No wanton shooting of suspects, no ride em cowboy rushing-ins at the cost of civilians; you do it by the book.
Hard to actually say how many maps fit the season, but there's at least a couple in the Mega Map Pack that are covered in the right amount of snow.
Super Monkey Ball: Merry Mayhem Hack
4 Players
Typical Monkey Ball gameplay, now set in a series of festive maps. Granted, the difficulty and hurl factor ramps up QUICK, but there's still fun to be had if you can shoulder through it. Honestly, it's Stage 3, Geneva Sudachi, that causes the most issues.
Plus, with Dolphin's "golf" netplay mode, there's no real worry of latency messing up an online session. Granted, this means that, as with typical Monkey Ball multiplayer, it's more a matter of witnessing each other's failures more than anything, but I know that's already the reason why a lot of you play some games like Worms and such.
Cave Story - Multiplayer Mod
4 Players
One of the weakest inclusions in this list (yes, including Barotrauma): the only thing that can really be called Christmas about Cave Story Multiplayer is IF, and only IF, someone (i.e. me) goes thorugh the effort of porting the Christmas sprites that are seen in Cave Story Plus.
That being said, I'd be willing to try, cuz I like Christmas, and Cave Story could be a comfy co-op play for the holiday.
Hammerwatch
4 Players
One of the few games that stands to scratch the itch left by Gauntlet, and would you know it: there's a Christmas-appropriate map to play on. That's not just me taking a Winter map and saying it's Christmas. That's what the mod author did, so I'm off the hook for that.
But to loop back to something said a lot with this list, it's a series that should be played more often yadda yadda yadda, but this time it's actually really really true. Hammerwatch 1 was fun for what was played, Heroes of Hammerwatch could stand to fulfill a desperately unfilled dungeon crawler niche, and Hammerwatch 2 genuinely impressed with its demo. If this gets it off the ground while being festive, then that's tits.
Map:
Cold Forest
Microworks
16 Players
It's free, it's fun, and they put a giant fuckoff Christmas Tree in the center of the level for the holidays. What else could you really ask for.
Shotgun Farmers
This game is admittedly pretty meh. It's a middling execution of an interesting high concept, that being a pseudo-Arena Shooter where bullets shot into the ground grow into weapons. Fun enough as a little novelty if you can get it (Often $4.00 on sale), but not polished enough for anyone that doesn't have patience for indie dev projects.
Warcraft 3
A Bunch, Lol
Got all the shit. There's co-op. There's prop hunt. Fuck it, it's Warcraft 3. You know it's got all the shit, plus the shit you didn't want, and a lot of the shit you didn't think it'd be possible to have--although Christmas has a lot more typical shit than Halloween does.
Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart
32 Players
Christmas tracks and Christmas character. Character singular, being Padoru Nero, but honestly who else do you need after that. In any case, playing a Winter-specific playlist will require some setup, but once it's done, it'll be a fine bit of holiday racism.
Sonic Robo Blast 2
32 Players
Second verse same as the first: SRB2 simply has a good amount of winter levels to pick from. Compared to Halloween, a lot more people have taken advantage of winter textures and what not, although still not a large amount. A collection WAD will have to be put together, unless people want to stomach swapping between a whole bunch of different ones.
Nazi Zombies
4 Players
Payday 2
4-12 Players
Around 4 Christmas Heists have been added to PAYDAY 2 over the years:
White Xmas
Stealing Xmas
Brooklyn Bank
Santa's Workshop
Admittedly, half of them mostly amount to holdout gameplay, but they're still fun challenges nonetheless.
In addition, there's the usual Christmas event, mods that can attempt to Christmas-fy the normal gameplay, and at least 4 Winter/Christmas custom heists to try out. Understandably, the download size might be a bit much if the desire is to only play for the holidays, but I like Payday 2 so fuck you.
New Super Mario Bros Wii Romhacks
4 Players
At this moment, I know of at least 4 potential Romhacks for the holiday season. A couple of them are demos, but nevertheless provide some co-op platformer Christmas gameplay. How many games do YOU know of that fit that niche? Huh? Huh? That's right, basically none. Bitch.
(A Hat in Time costs too much money, fuck you)
Hacks:
Newer-SMB Wii - Holiday Special
Devil Mario Winter Special
Winter Moon
Winter Edition
Tabletop Simulator
2-10 Players
AAAAAAAAAAAA
More to follow after Galtar.
Battlefront 2 (Classic)
64 Players
More festive and more effort than a lot of games on this list, even though it's only a couple of maps. What few are available should still be perfectly playable even with a small number of players, but I'll keep my ears pricked in case any remaining servers hosts these for the season.
Maps:
Santa's Workshop
Sith Lord Santa
Christmas in Jinglin' Town
Shoot the Shit Outta Elves and Clones
Super Mario 64 Netplay
Dunno, Lol
Unfortunately, very few winter romhacks have been ported to the PC port of Super Mario 64. There is a potential process to do this, which I could try to slog through, but if people want to try some 3D platforming--you know, having fun running through winter worlds together n' shit unless you too gay to enjoy that--there's another option.
The Net64 client still exists. We'd have to use the older 2.0 version of the client, as 3.0 dropped romhack support. It might not be a great solution, as part of the reason for this is because 3.0 has full object sync while 2.0 seemingly does not. If people want to at least test this out, then I'll be able to set up a private server and everything.
And then if that's gay, there's always the option of just playing Scrooge 64 on Super Mario 64 Ex Co-op on PC and leaving it at that, but it's only really Christmas-themed for the hub/intro, so that sucks.
Barony
4 Players
Barony, but now you get to get fucked by Frosty's severed head. Comes with a ton of other additions, like hats, christmas treats, enemy and level reskins, etc. etc.
It's Barony, but Christmas. Play it you dolt.
Plate Up
4-12 Players
While it might seem derivative, PlateUp provides a co-op cooking experience distinct from Overcooked.
In addition to a very different pace, PlateUp has players manage a lot regarding the restaurant and stuff like waiting tables, and the challenge only increases as more people show up and more items are added to the menu.
In addition to just being fun, of course there is a holiday mode. For Christmas--or at least, what it was last year--there is a unique restaurant layout where players are assisted by magical conveyors, with the option for additional conveyors to be up for purchase each day. Certainly something to evoke the idea of a toy assembly line, but with food.
Due Process
2-10 Players
For those looking for a PvP tactical FPS aside from Counter-Strike or RS6, Due Process is a game that stands to be a worthwhile alternative. That is, if you can actually get enough people to play it, because it is admittedly pretty dead despite the low on-sale price tag, but they've also added a 2v2 mode and Vs AI, so Due Process lives yet.
There's a few different gimmicks in play:
- The levels change each week to keep things fresh, so less need to worry about smoke throw autism.
- Players are given time at the start of each round to whiteboard their plans.
- Teams are given their entire supply of weapons at the start, so rather than Counter-Strike's economy system, you play around what you haven't lost yet to deaths and what you've seen enemy teams die with.
It's interesting enough, and yeah of course: there's a holiday mode where everything gets covered in snow. Consider the game. Consider it now now now now now now now.
Core Keeper
8 Players
In some ways, I've heard Core Keeper labeled a "top-down Terraria." Not so much that it's similar in gameplay, but that it captures the whole thing of being an adventure game where you dig and build your way through a world populated by monsters and bosses in a fun and video-gamey way.
Plus, there was an official Terraria crossover, so I guess the sentiment is at least somewhat official.
In any case, the Christmas event is mostly limited to decorative items. It's great for those that want to make icy areas or to Christmas-fy in their game, but yeah it's not the best for those looking for unique Christmas gameplay. That means this was just a chance to shill the gmae, but you know. Buy it. Buy it now.
Astroneer
8 Players
Astroneer is a pointless, pointless game that exemplifies the critical flaw of many engineering/automation titles, namly being the pointlessness of your journey. There's an arbitrary goal in reaching the end of the game, but after a certain point, it's only a mild amount of slog that gates completion, and little reason to base build across the whole planet.
This is where the EXO Events come into play. It's still pretty simple and arbitrary, but at least it provides an end goal that's more directly woven into increasing your automation and exploration capabilities. Shit's simple: you have to craft or recover enough of the event items to earn 10,000 points, no small task given that (according to last year's event), most of the items you can cash in are sub-100 points.
So basically, turn the point of the game into creating a toy factory and delivery system. That's pretty damn Christmas-y if you ask me.
The Greatest Penguin Heist of All Time
2-8 Players
It's trash made by some anon. You like trash, don't you? That's why you're browsing a list for video games.
Terraria
64 Players
Just another that fits the bill of "if you wanna play this already, so let's winterize it." There already is a form of Christmas event in the game, but it's mostly cosmetic, and the Christmas invasion is late game content. If there's a desire to play Terraria over the holidays, the most change would be found in a seed that turns most of it to snow and ice, but not much else.
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