You, Santa
Above: Nintendo’s UK trailer for Animal Crossing: New Leaf’s holiday content
Nintendo’s cartoonish 3D-animated community sim for 3DS, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, relies heavily on seasonal content, so this is a pretty joyous time of year in your village. This holiday, your character will be in charge of delivering presents (complete with Santa suit), and you’ll see typical in-game decorative goodies including Christmas lights and snow.
A new holiday level for the tiny-alien puzzle-actioner Pikmin 3 called Fortress of Festivity also includes seasonal challenges, and is part of a downloadable Mission Mode content pack for that game.
Above: Pikmin 3’s Fortress of Festivity involves more delicious desserts than devilish dungeons.
Snowdown Showdown
Above: League of Legends clockwork champion Orianna gets a cheerful (for her) holiday look.
Riot Games, the developers of popular online battle arena game League of Legends, doesn’t really expect players to stop attempting to destroy each other … they’re just helping them to do it festively. The Snowdown season running now through Jan. 6 includes winter-themed skins, winter-themed summonable helpers, a frosty new heads-up display, and unlockable icons.
Snowdown’s Legend of the Poro King game mode pitches players against each other 5v5 on the Howling Abyss, and players can send each other in-game gifts of different mystery skins for their characters.
If tank warfare is more your thing, PC armored combat title Battleline: Steel Warfare has a Seasonal Supply Event running through Jan. 6, where both the battlefield and the game lobby have been decorated for the holiday, and festive bags of gold (ho ho ho) are the rewards for complete PvP battle seasons.
Making toys and driving back the Ice Queen
Above: There, that tiny person, right next to the Christmas tree in Might & Magic Heroes Online — is that a tiny ugly sweater?
The residents in many of Ubisoft’s online games are prepping for the holidays. Players of The Settlers Online cheer up children and frightened settlers with pony rides and toys and create decorations. Might & Magic Heroes Online is having a Christmas event with five seasonal troops, a Winter Deer Pet, and a full Christmas attire set, which we’re pretty sure also includes an ugly sweater.
And in perhaps the most scenic option yet, the Anno Online city-builder dusts your island with snow and decorations — and pits you against the evil Ice Queen and her plan to stop Christmas by freezing the world.
Above: Pretty enough to live in, if you like the white fluffy stuff: the Anno Online city builder’s holiday skin.
Star light, star bright … give us the loot already
Above: Developers of fantasy MMOs like Dragon’s Prophet find the holidays irresistible.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn gets into the holiday spirit with the Starlight Celebration, which sends players on a crusade to spread the spirit of the season … and pick up some holiday-season food, furnishings, and clothing. (No sweaters, but you can get a fake mustache and a truly tacky hat.)
Fantasy MMO RuneScape is building a giant Christmas cracker with 250,000 pieces of paper earned by players for delivering a gift a day to NPCs. No, we can’t even make that sort of thing up. Once it’s built, they can pull it apart to share bonus experience point items and “mirthful jokes.”
The “Festive Cheer” event also includes a new boss monster, “Snowverload,” whom players defeat in a snowball fight, and snowboarding (complete with unlockable boards and reputation points).
Dragon’s Prophet is running the Silver Dragon Festival from now through Jan. 15. Those evil goblins and giants are rudely interrupting the land’s festival of food, wine, performances, and songs. But the Great Dragons aren’t fans of killing, so you’ll fight off your enemies with snowballs, snowmen, and the “snow gift of lift.”
And it wouldn’t be the holidays without venerable MMO EverQuest (and EverQuest II), where the Frostfell area awards quests like “Saving Santug” (in EQ) and “The Great Candy (Cane) Chase” (in EQII). Visit Santug Cluagg in EverQuest, or partake in craftables, daily presents, and merchant items in Frostfell Wonderland Village in EverQuest II.
Handheld holiday happenings
Above: Be very, very afraid: Warrior Kringle joins the World of Warriors RPG adventure for iOS and Android.
Mobile gamers, never fear. Developers are making sure they deliver pocket-sized holiday cheer.
Actioner Rayman Fiesta Run is decked out with holiday levels, a costume for Rayman, and seasonal challenges. The Bot Squad puzzle battler picks up a Christmas theme, levels, and challenges.
Above: Because when you think of holidays, you should think of Blood … Brothers.
In the popular mobile RPG Blood Brothers, the God of Steel event lets you battle other players and “fiendish snowmen” between now and Dec. 29. The World Battle Tournament, which ends Christmas Day, allows players to pillage the Frozen Castle and decorate an in-game tree for prizes.
GungHo Online’s Puzzle & Dragons has holiday decorations, presents, play bonuses, extra boss appearances, and a special holiday-themed dungeon with Hera, in Queen of Darkness Santa mode.
PocketGems iOS titles including Secret Passages, Tap Paradise Cove, Animal Voyage, Campus Life, Episode — Choose Your Story, and Night at the Museum all have weekly content updates with holiday themes.
Storm8 games Restaurant Story, Bakery Story, and Fantasy Forest Story have things like reindeer track floor tiles, holiday bakery recipes, and the Yule Mule.
Warrior Kringle, the “Festive Fighter,” joins the ranks of the World of Warriors RPG for a limited time. The gem-matching puzzle game Dr. Who: Legacy has new daily content, including holiday themes, as part of its Advent Calendar promotion now through Christmas.
On a more disturbing note, the Krampus, a twisted Santa ally-gone-rogue, is attempting to take control of Christmas on HellFire: The Summoning. Rally the elves and reindeer to fight him off! One can only imagine how many ugly sweaters he might have to distribute.