Team Fortress 2
*6 Players
Like with Scream Fortress, it's pretty cut and dry: play Smissmas maps in the queue, play Smissmas MvM maps on potato.tf
And like last time, the 6 Player limit is only for casual and for MvM servers we can't host ourselves.
Green Army Men Christmas Special
6 Players per Squad
It's a bit fucked, thanks to DLC shenanigans, but Green Army Christmas still remains as a pretty good option for the holidays. Real nice pint-sized PTSD.
There's also the Winter War, and the all of 7 people that play that on December 6th. It's winter-themed, so it counts.
Streets of Rogue - Christmas Chunk Packs
4 Players
Holiday chunk packs exist, with one that is explicitly themed around Christmas, so just running through the main game is an option. Alternatively, I think there's at least one Christmas-themed campaign.
Plus, thanks to the Courier main class, you can easily make a Santa custom character.
Garry's Mod
32 Players
Thanks to the nature of the game, this one is a bit of a grab bag. We could do things that are explicitly winter-only, like the Snowball Fight mod, but with so many gamemodes that work on whatever map you'd like, we could easily "Christmas-fy" a lot of minigames by running them on holiday-appropriate maps.
As such, this is more here to check general interest, and a selection will be made later.
Mario Party
4 Players
Surprisingly, there's only a couple of snowy boards to pick from: Mario Party 3's Chilly Waters and Mario Party 6: Snowflake Lake. I guess picking between them depends on how much you like the N64 vs GCN eras of Mario Party.
That being said, there's still the matter of netcode. The special MPN builds of Project64 and Dolphin only help, not fix their chunky online, so playing within region might be a necessity. Can't really play a game like Sneak n' Snore if you have 9f of Delay.
Duke Nukem 3D: Nuclear Winter
I Dunno, Lol
People might not find this expac lazy, but it's Douk and it's Christmas, so it's the best you can get. As far as online goes, either NetDuke32 or Rednukem should work despite not being server/client 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.
Only concern is hosting privately, but KF runs pretty good with listen servers, and we've got at least a couple of us that could run it.
Golf With Your Friends
12 Players
At least 20 courses were submitted to the official Christmas contest, and there's even more on the workshop, so GWYF is still a pretty good pick for the holidays.
Duck Game
8 Players
Winter maps and winter hats. Not much else to say beyond that: it's Duck Game. Throw in Duck Game Rebuilt, and you can even have Snow weather effects (wow!).
Duck Game Xmas Collection
Unreal Tournament 2004
32 Players
The Arena Shooter slot. Many can fit here, and honestly I'd probably be more leaning towards Xonotic, but the point is made: you want fragging, there's holiday maps to do it on, easy.
Saints Row 4
2 Players
Sadly, this might be a bit fucked, as there's been issues getting online to work properly with this DLC. Vanilla SR4 doesn't like Radmin, and SR4 Remastered just doesn't work at all. Still, if we can get it to work, it's a nice bit of superpowered Christmas fun.
Left 4 Dead 2
4 Players
Surprisingly, L4D2 does as well as or potentially even better at Christmas than Halloween. Custom campaigns, skins for guns and zeds, snow and lights in existing levels, the whole magilla. Plus, even if we run out of maps, there's a replacer to make almost every level snowy.
As usual, my server should be able to run custom maps for 4 players, and we'll need to use a listen server with something like ABM if we want to go beyond that.
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 focus is music, and there's plenty of Christmas music available to play through the game with.
Plus, the versus mode usually skins to Christmas as well.
A list hasn't been made yet, but many can probably be pulled straight from DaMusakShack.
Neverwinter Nights
255 Players
It's Neverwinter Nights. I dunno how many Christmas-focused campaigns there are, but you can bet your ass there's Winter ones, and I can run it all off of my server.
Tooth and Tail
4 Players
On the weaker end of things: nothing too festive, just a lot of custom winter maps are available.
Not too bad though: worst case scenario, we're just playing more of a really underrated RTS game, and don't the Soviet elements just really hammer in the harshness of winter.
Counter-Strike
32 Players
It's Counter-Strike. There's winter maps. Not much to say beyond that. Both CS:S and CS 1.6 were able to run on the server, so it's victims' choice.
CS:GO/CS2 is mostly off the table. I can't host it, and they don't Christmas-fy their maps, usually.
Worms Armageddon
6 Players
Take holiday image, add it to Worms. That's Worms Christmas. Don't even have to make it navigable thanks to Mole Shopper.
Minecraft
100,000 Players
Three ways to go: Winter Modded Survival, Winter Minigames, or Winter Adventure Maps. Whichever sounds interesting, all can be hosted on my server.
Rocket League
4-8 Players
Rocket League doesn't change much, but there's always a couple ways to do it Holiday-style. There's always the Hockey mode, that replaces the ball with a Puck, and then in the past: the yearly Frosty Fest has featured alternate modes and stages.
If you didn't grab Rocket League before it moved off Steam, it's easy to nab for free with the Heroic Games Launcher.
Fall Guys
4 Players
It's Christmas, of course there'd be more than a few uber-casual games on the list. With Fall Guys, they just up the concentration of the snow-themed events. The rest have previously been stitched into the holiday quilt through a gift-grabbing metagame laid on top of the courses.
Like with Rocket League, playing for free is simple with the Heroic Games Launcher.
Snow Bros
2 Players
One of the few winter Arcade games, but also one that's stood the test of time. It's another in the Bubble-Bobble-esque genre, where you roll em up and roll em down. Not much to say, just some good winter fun that's easy to play with Fightcade.
King Arthur's Gold
32 Players
It's capture the flag, where each side has to steal from the other's castle, and the twist is that said castle has to be built first. It's fun, and it can get Christmas-fied. That is, if the devs remember to, but if they don't, then it's simply just a matter of using a Christmas Texture pack.
And I don't think I can run a server for this, but even if I could, it's best played with a bunch of players. The same reason Ace of Spades isn't on this list.
Apex Legends - Winter Express
3 Players
Surprisingly, one of the few on this list with a holiday-exclusive, unique gamemode to offer.
Rather than a Battle Royale, it's a round-based, single life match of trying to capture the Train for your team. Rounds are quick, and it's generally actually fun.
Although, this also depends on whether they actually do it. It's a mainstay every year, but then 2023 was pre-empted by 30v30 class wars.
Overcooked 2
4 Players
Between Winter Wonderland and Kevin's Christmas Cracker, there's about 10 holiday-appropriate levels to play on. Not much so say beyond that: it's Overcooked, so it's pretty good co-op stuff regardleess.
Quake
32 Players
6 Map Jams, 106 Maps
Of course, it's community map jams, so not everything's 100% on-theme, but nevertheless, there is a shitload of Christmas Quake to play through.
That's even before you get to including any generic snow maps.
In any case, as per usual: will be hosting on my vkQuake server, which also supports QS-S clients if needed. There might even be a chance for Quake 2, given that the remaster has taken off well.
Mauled Deathmatch
Enter the Grinch
Doom
32-255 Players
Sven Co-op
32 Players
Barotrauma
16 Players
One of the biggest stretches on this list, but it's Winter enough with icy waters, a Kringle Cola sub, holiday uniforms, and other festive trimmings.
For Honor
2-8 Players
Winter takes the normal, tense gameplay of For Honor and then slaps it onto a thin ice rink that's absolutely frustrating as hell to fight on. You hate it, but then you make someone else suffer, and that makes it all worthwhile.
I'd say it'd be fun for about 10-20 minutes before becoming beyond frustrating, but that's For Honor year-round anyways.
Ultimate Chicken Horse
4-255(?)
The Iceberg map is the only official map we have with any ice or snow, but thanks to the custom map section and dev-ran contests, there's a few community ones to work with.
While they lack the active and dangerous gimmicks of the real maps, the layouts still make them worth playing. Plus, with mods, we can easily fit everyone into a single lobby.
Project Zomboid
126 Players
Surprisingly, one of the few map mods that actually challenges you to "beat it" in this game is Christmas themed. It's simple enough, fight through to retake Santa's Workshop from the zeds. Enough to be a decent short bit of fun.
SWAT 4
10 Players
Insert joke here about replacing snowball fights with pepperball fights.
In any, SWAT's a pretty good co-op experience, and while I've yet to filter through them all, there seems to be at least a few winter-themed maps.
The only concern is hosting. I can't put up a server for this, so someone will have to run a listen server.
Super Monkey Ball: Merry Mayhem Hack
4 Players
Typical Monkey Ball gameplay, now set in a series of festive maps. There's a brutal peak in difficulty around Stage 3, but if you can get through it, it's a decently fun time.
Netplay will be through Dolphin, although usual latency concerns can be tossed aside thanks to the emulator's Golf Mode, which allows you to transfer Zero Latency priority to any player.
Cave Story - Multiplayer Mod
4 Players
Might be a bit tough to set up, as it'd depend on me altering the Holiday sprites from Cave Story Plus to be usable with old Cave Story, but in any case, it'd be a fun little run through of a game that's surprisingly become more and more associated with the holiday season.
Hammerwatch
4 Players
It's Gauntlet, but online, and also not Gauntlet. Playable with the GOG version, and thanks to custom maps, there's actually a couple winter-themed ones we can play through. Not much to say beyond that.
Map:
Cold Forest
Microworks
16 Players
DoomWare, but free and standalone, without having to worry about mods, and they also throw a Christmas Tree into the map.
Shotgun Farmers
A pretty novel game: you're farmers fighting each other with food, and the way you reload is with how missed shots plant seeds in the ground, eventually growing into guns with fresh mags. It's fun enough, and of course there's a Christmas selection of maps and such.
Warcraft 3
A Bunch, Lol
Same options as usual: not too hard to get snow maps if we wanna play RTS games, and there's a decent enough mix of holiday-themed custom games to pick from. There's a lot of overlap with typical modes, so it just depends on whatever is felt like at the time.
Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart
32 Players
Of course there's a shitton of snowy tracks to pick from. As with Halloween, it's mostly just a matter of setting things up into a playlist, or otherwise repackage them into a snow-only selection.
There is the question of how exactly we'll want to race: SRB2K or Ring Racers, but either version can be hosted on my server. We'll just be using the SRB2K-Neptune and DRRR-Noire builds, for more options and mod support.
Sonic Robo Blast 2
32 Players
It's Sonic, it's 3D, there's co-op, and there's winter maps. Put it all together, throw it on the server, and then add a tether mod, and that's SRB2 plans for Christmas.
Nazi Zombies
4 Players
There's a surprising number of high-effort maps for snow/Christmas in Nazi Zombies. This time around, it's also a much simpler matter: no other version really does, so it's just a matter of using Plutoinum to get things set up with World at War.
Payday 2
4-12 Players
4 Christmas Heists:
White Xmas
Stealing Xmas
Brooklyn Bank
Santa's Workshop
Is that enough to make it worthwhile to reinstall Payday 2? Probably not, even with the additional 4 custom heists out on the mod sites, but it's Christmas and it's co-op, so it's on the list. Plus, there have been mods to get up to 12 players.
New Super Mario Bros Wii Romhacks
4 Players
Tabletop Simulator
2-10 Players
AAAAAAAAAAAA
More to follow after Galtar.
Battlefront 2 (Classic)
64 Players
It's only a couple of maps, but nevertheless, it was a pleasant surprise to see that there are Christmas options for SWBF2. Only question is of setting up a server, but shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Maps:
Santa's Workshop
Sith Lord Santa
Christmas in Jinglin' Town
Shoot the Shit Outta Elves and Clones
Super Mario 64 Netplay
Dunno, Lol
At the time of writing, there's not too much avaialble for the SM64 PC port, but it nevertheless exists as the main option and has its own working Tether mod.
The alternative is to use Net64, an older solution that works with emulators instead. The only issue is figuring out the right version, as 2.0 has full romhack support but 3.0 is the one with full object sync; however, the point for now is that the option exists if the prospect of co-op Christmas SM64 is that appealing.
Barony
4 Players
Like "Scarony," this is just Barony but with some holiday items and everything being properly decorated. Nothing wrong with that, however.
As usual, we can play this with the GOG Version quite easily, just with a port-forwarded host.
Plate Up
4-12 Players
It's another Restaurant Manager, but this one is focused more on taking risks with what you can set up and serve, and look at that: it's got its own special Christmas variation of the restaurant to play on for the holidays. That's basically it.
Due Process
2-10 Players
A tactical shooter that puts a fun twist on infiltration and weapon economy, and also is incredibly dead. We'd have enough poeple to play it though, and it gets Christmas-y, so it makes the list.
Core Keeper
8 Players
A very loose "Christmas" event: how it manifests in Core Keeper is more through the holiday shop than anything else, allowing you to set up your bases and the like in proper Christmas fashion, but not necessarily impacting the gameplay too much.
It's Core Keeper, however, and that's fun to play regardless.
Astroneer
8 Players
Probably the closest you can get to having Santa's Factory itself actually appear in a video game. It's simple enough: each year, the EXO Event wants you to build or recover enough toys to deliver out into space, and while Astroneer is usually pretty simple and aimless, that's enough of a goal to really tie the whole thing together.
The Greatest Penguin Heist of All Time
2-8 Players
A bit ill-fitting, seeing how Penguins aren't found in the North Pole, but it's snowy, it's winter, and there's usually a holiday element, so it makes the list regardless.
Terraria
64 Players
Sadly only Vanilla, but with custom worlds and seeds, there's a decent bit we can do to make it Christmas. Just playing on the Deep Freeze world with the Christmas event activated is roughly enough for me to be willing to add it into the mix, and I'm sure there's some adventure or golf maps that can be included too. All on the server, of course.
Skyrim Together
8 Players
As with Halloween, this divvies up into two main options: either we can do Vanilla Skyrim with Christmas Mods, or do snowy dungeons (likely still with some Christmas mod flairs mixed in). Either way, pretty easy to set up and play with how Skyrim Together works.
Borderlands 2 - Headhunter Pack 3
4+ Players
It's a very short bit of content, but Borderlands 2 does have a Christmas mission pack to play through. It's just a matter of making sure you have it: if you're only on the GOTY edition, then you might need to drop $3 more.
In addition, we can go above 4 players if we downpatch to an earlier version.
Rain World
4-8 Players
Thanks again to Rain Meadow, onine multiplayer should work fine for Rain World. A lot of the issues with Story Mode have been ironed out, and while Arena has some notable issues with grappling worms and too many creatures, it works as long as everyone is Survivor/Hunter.
Right now, only two regions come to mind: Moonlit Acres and Forsaken Station. Both of these are also subject to how well Meadow can sync additional features, like how it can handle positioning and such but has been known to be kinda iffy with weather effects and custom entities.
At least with Arena, there's a potential for more options, including those that come in region mods like Moonlit Acres. Will be posted as they're scoured.
Halo Infinite
4-32 Players
Another that really benefits from anything "winter" being considered "Christmas." At the time of writing, this is pre-Holidays, so 343 has yet to shown what they'll officially induct into the game, but regardless: there's already a decent amount for regular multiplayer, firefight, missions, custom games, and so on.
For The King
3-5+ Players
A fun spin on the tabletop adventure experience while keeping it light in systems, For The King also comes with a special winter module that replaces the usual threat of growing Chaos with a growing winter storm instead. Normally fits 3, but can play with more thanks to mods.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
32 Players
A pretty laidback experience, just skating around a winter-fied version of Millenium Square, doing some Score Attack and such if you feel like it. The multiplayer mod also works with the DRM-Free version, no problem, although I might need to run a server if they don't switch over to the mod this year.
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