As the year winds down, it’s a good time to throw another log on the virtual fireplace, heat up your favorite beverage, and settle in with an MMO holiday event… or two… or sixteen. There certainly is no shortage of yuletide, winterwhatever, Christmas festivals happening in pretty much every MMO, after all!
Because it’s so overwhelming to keep track of these, especially if they’re happening in games that you visit rather than play regularly, we’ve compiled a helpful list of all of the winter holiday events happening in MMOs this month. Don’t see an important one? Let us know in the comments!
AdventureQuest 3D welcomes you to the snowy bliss of Frostval - Ho ho holiday jingles are in the air over at AdventureQuest 3D, as the quirky MMO welcomes back the seasonal event of Frostval. The winter holiday transforms the central town…
Aion NA and Aion Classic EU host holiday events full of trees, free gifts, and Shugos - Ah, Christmas in Aion. It means snow, seasonal gifts, Solorius trees, and ambulatory weasel people saying "nyerk" a lot. All of these festive traditions are being held across the game,…
APB Reloaded patches in cross-district matchmaking and new anti-cheat, readies a Christmas event December 18 - This week brought in a fresh patch to the rebuilding MMO APB Reloaded as developer Little Orbit continues to try to modernize the aged game with a couple of new…
ASKA celebrates Yule with festive trees, pushes back some updates, and promises a roadmap - It's been a minute since we've peeked in on the Viking-themed colony survival title ASKA, but that's primarily because the game has just recently put out a jolly little December…
Black Desert asks you to decorate a tree for charity - There's a special tree that stands above the rest in Black Desert and Black Desert mobile, insomuch as it offers real-world blessing to those in need this time of year.…
Black Desert celebrates Deadeye class and Christmas on PC, adds new boss monster on mobile - It's time to celebrate whiskey! And Christmas! Yes, those two things can come together in real life, but they're also being celebrated in Black Desert specifically via a couple of…
Blade & Soul hosts a Silver Bells Christmas event, Lineage II hands out free holiday goodie boxes - Who's ready for some more free Christmas presents in a couple of NCsoft MMORPGs? Did you raise your hand, there, little Timothy? Then you're in luck because both Blade &…
Brighter Shores celebrates Christmas by randomly handing out hats - It's the season of Hatsgiving in Brighter Shores! OK, it's actually a Christmas event where players can find and trade hats, but Hatsgiving rolls off of the tongue a little…
Conqueror’s Blade, now self-published by its developer, has launched its 21st season, Leonides’ Glory - Conqueror's Blade has dropped a big update and fresh season for fans of the multiplayer strategy game just in time for Christmas: It's called Leonides' Glory, and it marks the…
DC Universe Online kicks off its Christmas event, Season’s Greedings - If you're a superhero MMORPG fan, you're getting no fewer than two big holiday events this week, and the first is upon us now thanks to DC Universe Online's Season's…
Elder Scrolls Online’s winter event, the New Life Festival, returns next week - Count Elder Scrolls Online among the MMORPGs that celebrate a winter holiday without clear references to the real world - no Santa in Tamriel, after all. Yes, the New Life…
Elite Dangerous begins its holiday event and talks space colonization as the Thargoid War ends - There is a whole lot of curiosity about Elite: Dangerous' upcoming colonization feature (as one might expect), which means that Frontier Developments had plenty of questions that it tried to…
EVE Online’s seasonal Winter Nexus event returns December 5 - It's almost time for the winter season to come to... space? This would seem weird if it weren't for the fact that EVE Online celebrates the winter holidays every year,…
EverQuest and EverQuest II break out another holly jolly Frostfell - Have you been naughty or nice this year? No matter, the EverQuest franchise is going to treat you very well either way (but we hope you've been nice!). Frostfell, the…
EverQuest Online Adventures rogue server Sandstorm celebrates Christmas - Are you ready for some classic low-poly holiday cheer? Then you're in luck because the EverQuest Online Adventures rogue server Sandstorm has kicked off its holiday event last weekend with…
Final Fantasy XI brings its Starlight Celebration around once more on December 16 - Are you dreaming of a Vana'diel Christmas, just like the ones you used to know? The good news or bad news for Final Fantasy XI fans is that the Starlight…
Final Fantasy XIV returns Starlight to the game on December 16 - It's just about time to drench everything in red felt, silvery tinsel, and a heaping dose of hot cocoa. Wait, you probably shouldn't drench everything in that; hot cocoa is…
Fractured kicks off a Christmas event and permanently boosts glory gains by 33% - You know, we get so few Thanksgiving events in MMORPGs that we could count them on one hand, but for Christmas we get so many that we can barely cover…
Guild Wars 2’s Wintersday has returned through January 2 with plushie weapons - Guild Wars 2 friends, it's time to head to Divinity's Reach in your festive snow gear because Wintersday has returned to Tyria this afternoon. "As the year winds down and…
Lord of the Rings Online welcomes back the Yule Festival, adjusts account reputation system - The snowballs are flying and the theater critics are sharpening their quills as the Yule Festival returns for another season in Lord of the Rings Online. The annual event kicks…
LOTRO Legendarium: MOP’s guide to unlocking Lord of the Rings Online content in 2025 - While Lord of the Rings Online is a tremendous MMORPG that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat, I won't deny that its business model is confusing and even…
Magic The Gathering Online opens a new vintage cube and other events to close out the year - We don't often peek in to Magic: The Gathering Online too often, but that's certainly not because it's doing nothing, as the end of the calendar year showcases with some…
MapleStory’s second portion of The Dark Ride adds new boss, Dark Maplemas, and more XP bonuses - MapleStory players already knew that The Dark Ride update was broken up into two halves, so the fact that this week brought more of the patch isn't exactly a surprise.…
MechWarrior Online starts holiday events, adds a new map, and releases two more legendary Mechs - Is it really the holiday season without multi-ton machines of war stomping around outside in the snow? MechWarrior Online certainly doesn't think so, and the multiplayer PvP 'Mech battler won't…
Monster Hunter Now opens a wintry habitat, adds more monsters, and brings the switch axe December 12 - It's winter in our portion of the globe, which means that the cold season is also hitting multiplayer games such as Monster Hunter Now as its upcoming season brings both…
Neverwinter’s seasonal Simril’s Winter Festival returns with old and new rewards - While it might be hard to get into a festive mood given the studio-ending layoffs at Cryptic Studios and financial woes for megacorp owner Embracer, Neverwinter is regardless putting up…
New World’s Winter Convergence Festival is live with needed nerfs for mounts and the blunderbuss - New World fans waking up this morning will find the world transformed by the snows and festivities of the Christmas-esque Winter Convergence Festival as promised. "The Winter Wanderer has returned,…
Nightingale’s winter update adds player-hosted servers, resource automation, and a new winter event - Technically, the newest update to Nightingale offers resource automation, but it's not really automated in the traditional sense. It's just telling estate residents to do something for resource gathering. That's…
No Man’s Sky is running a relaxed ‘redux’ expedition set for the holiday season - Feeling a bit stressed and frazzled about the upcoming craziness of December as you fall further behind on gaming projects for the year? No Man's Sky totally sympathizes, which is…
Palia teases Season of Splendor and Winterlights for tomorrow - I don't know about you, but I most definitely did not expect to be hearing so much praise for the newly purchased Palia in Daybreak's latest financial call, nor the…
Palia wants to be your ‘holiday homestead’ with next week’s update - Is it possible for Palia to get any cozier than it already is? Apparently so because this life sim is busting out a cheerful holiday update next week on December…
Pixel sandbox Necesse brings swamps and Christmas raps to your home this holiday season - Base builder Necesse didn't cruise into the holidays without tossing a present in the shape of a patch your way. Version 0.29 arrived on December 19th with several changes including…
PlanetSide 2’s holiday event, Auraximas, has returned with a new Ice Dragon weapon - On the first day of Auraximas, my true love gave to me... a legitimate reason to use the goofy snowman in a pilot cap header pic for a PlanetSide 2…
RuneScape’s Christmas Village returns for 2024 - It turns out that a large swath of RuneScape players have indeed been nice this year, because Papa Jagex is giving them the keys of the Christmas Village and not…
Star Citizen alpha 4.0 releases as a ‘preview’ version that runs parallel to the ongoing alpha 3.24.3 - CIG promised over and over that Star Citizen would get its alpha 4.0 release before the end of this year, and technically speaking, it delivered that goal: The new alpha…
Star Trek Online rings in the holidays with the return of Q’s Winter Wonderland - It's Christmastime in the final frontier yet again! That's because Star Trek Online has reopened the Q's Winter Wonderland event zone with returning events and a host of all-new goodies…
Star Wars Galaxies Restoration’s new playable species, combat tree revamp, and Life Day are live - When Star Wars Galaxies rogue server SWG Restoration announced a major customization and combat tree overhaul earlier this month, we didn't imagine it was launching so soon. But in fact,…
Star Wars Galaxies rogue server SWG Legends has kicked off the Wookiee Life Day festival - If there's one event that Star Wars Galaxies always did in the most ridiculous way imaginable, it's... OK, actually, it's the Ewok Festival of Love. But if there are two…
Tarisland celebrates the holidays with snowball fights, buff-granting cookies, and an ice giant December 18 - Tarisland will not be ignoring the Christmas season in its first year of life, but that's not a surprise considering Tencent promised a seasonal event this month. Now players have…
The Daily Grind: Does your MMO have a ‘Pre-Searing’ experience you keep coming back to? - Over the holidays, inspired entirely by Carlo's reminiscing on the game, I logged into Classic Guild Wars to thumb through my characters and see what presents have shown up in…
The Stream Team: Post-Christmas construction in Kallax - A time-honored tradition after unwrapping Christmas gifts is... assembling the presents! But Massively OP's MJ doesn't have anything to assemble, so in order to participate in this she's launching back…
There’s still no ETA for the return of Corepunk’s servers, but there are test shards up now - We probably don't need to reiterate what dreadfully bad luck it is to have your early access MMORPG offline the whole week before Christmas, but that's the situation that's confronted…
Throne and Liberty launches the Startree Solstice event today alongside a cooking revamp - It's patch day for Throne and Liberty as Amazon and NCsoft roll out the planned holiday content, the first Christmas ever for the global game. The festive Startree Solstice event…
Tower of Fantasy adds a new character, launches new seasons, and kicks off holiday-themed events - Tower of Fantasy is quickly getting into both the holiday spirit and the new update spirit, as its most recent patch is bringing another new character, a slew of December…
Trove sees Snowfest return to the MMO sandbox as Snowvasion ’24 begins - Hypercute blocky MMORPG sandbox Trove has launched its Christmas holiday celebration as of this morning and Snowfest descends upon the game and snowmen invade the world. Wait, snowmen? Yes.[AL:Trove] "Snowvaders,…
Warcraft Rumble kicks off its PC beta along with its Winter Veil festivities - If you've found yourself wishing to have Warcraft Rumble playable on your PC before now (or perhaps you've wished for something Warcraft-adjacent that's a strategy game and isn't going to…
Wayfinder pumps out a quality-of-life patch with nightmare mode and Eventide holiday event - Planning to spend some holiday free time hopping around in Wayfinder's pocket realms? You might find a few more surprises since the last time you played, as Airship Syndicate released…
Working As Intended: Playing house – er, apartment – in SWG Legends - This week, I'm starting up a new miniseries called Playing House here in the Working As Intended column, and it's entirely the fault of a tweet from Star Wars Galaxies…
World of Tanks holds movie star Jason Statham at cannon-point for a new collaboration - I can't wait until I'm a famous B-list action movie star and can sell out to all sorts of weird companies. But for now, you and I will have to…
World of Tanks’ Holiday Ops event brings festive decor, pet-styled tank cosmetics, and Jason Statham’s missions - It's time for the Christmas season in World of Tanks, which can mean only one thing: plastering a fluffy cat face across your rumbling vehicle of war. Don't believe us?…
World of Warcraft previews the features of its Undermined update as Winter Veil brings the Christmas spirit - The time is almost here when World of Warcraft players will get to experience Goblin Nar Shadaa, aka the city of Undermine, in patch 11.1. That means it's time for…
World of Warships Legends celebrates ‘Shipmas’ with cosmetics, free DLC, and a new boat - Merry Shipmas, everyone! No, this holiday isn't a celebration of your ability to make two licensed characters smooch each other; it's the seasonal event happening this week in the console…
World of Warships sails to the North Pole with this year’s holiday patch - How do you transform the drab steel gray of a battleship into something festive enough to gain the approval of Fleet Admiral Santa Claus? By decking the, er, deck with…
A few more that didn’t make it into our roundup already:
- Skyforge’s Winter Celebration is on until January 1st, even on the Switch. Yo, it has a skating rink.
- Overwatch 2’s Winter Wonderland is back for the season.
- Sea of Thieves has begun what Rare is calling the Festival of Giving, through December 30th.
- Apex Legends’ Winter’s Haunt event is live with new cosmetics and the Winter Express LTM.
- Dark Age of Camelot’s Midwinter celebrations run through January 6th.
- Gamigo is running its 12 days of Telara promo for Riftmas in RIFT – plus Fae Yule has returned!
- Realm of the Mad God has kicked off Oryxmas. Y’all, they have plushies.
- World of Tanks Modern Armor is legitimately running Winter Fest is conjunction with its Frostbite season.
- Grinchta’s Lair is back in indie darling Villagers and Heroes.
- Red Dead Online is running a “merry call to arms” through January 6th.
- Kickstarted VR MMO Ilysia warns that the Gromch has returned for the holiday season.
- Uncharted Waters Origin is running a super long holiday event; it doesn’t end until January 21st.
- The Finals’ 5.1 update includes the Snowball Blitz event.
- If a golf MMO is your Christmas jam, take a peek at Shot Online and its Christmas Bingo event. Yes.
- Brand-new shooter Supervive has introduced the Cosmic Winter Jubilee.
- Fiesta Online has rolled out the Winter Wonders update with events and deco through January 15th.
- Metin2 is still around, and its new winter server allows players to zip to endgame.
- NosTale’s winter and new-year-themed festivities run through January 22nd.
- The Snowflake Festival has returned to Runes of Magic.
- Marvel Rivals is planning a Winter Celebration event beginning December 20th with a new limited-time game mode called Jeff’s Winter Splash Festival.
- Vindictus welcomed players to its holiday event this morning.
- GTAO isn’t maybe the most cozy destination for Christmas, but it does try: “Roam the powdered streets during the rare Los Santos snowfall and see citywide holiday decorations along with returning seasonal events like The Gooch, Weazel Plaza Shootout, and Yeti Hunt, which will also allow you to claim rewards from years past.”
- Sky Children of the Light is doing an Alice in Wonderland collab for the holidays.
And as a bonus gift to you, here are a few discussions and holiday streams (these will populate as MJ and Chris tackle them over the next couple of weeks!).
The Daily Grind: Do you enjoy wearing winter outfits in MMOs during the holidays? - With winter setting in and Christmas right around the corner, there's no better time in my opinion to be wrapping up your virtual avatar in the finest and warmest of…
The Stream Team: Astroneer’s Glitchwalkers vs Project C.H.E.E.R. - In an ideal universe, Massively OP's MJ would get to hunt for the Project C.H.E.E.R. toys in Astroneer's Glitchwalkers. But since that simulation was hacked, she'll have to return to…
The Stream Team: Christmas Eve capers in Guild Wars 2’s Wintersday - [AL:GW2]Last-minute shopping? No thank you! Massively OP's MJ will get all her holiday PvP needs met in Guild Wars 2's Snowball Mayhem. She'll also spend her Christmas Eve jumping across…
The Stream Team: Comparing MMO Yule Logs for Christmas - Did you expect an action-packed adventure on Christmas Day? Sorry, Massively OP's MJ plans to just sit by a blazing fire and relax with y'all, chatting about all the games…
The Stream Team: Cozy winter vibin’ in the Holiday Homestead of Palia - It's cold. It's winter. It's almost time for the holidays proper. That's got MOP's Chris feeling some kind of way for this afternoon's stream, and the game that's closest to…
The Stream Team: Drilling Deeper and hunting Yuletide Elves in Deep Rock Galactic for the holidays - It's been a while since Massively OP's MJ delved down into the dark as a Dwarf in Deep Rock Galactic. And with the holidays and Drilling Deeper Season 5, there's…
The Stream Team: It’s finally time for AQ3D Frostval fun! - One of the (many) things Massively OP's MJ loves about AQ3D is that it waits until December to begin the winter holiday festivities! That's right: Because the game giving ample…
The Stream Team: On the 13th anniversary, SWTOR gave to me… - [AL:TOR]...A stream full of Life Day memories! And Wookiee hugs. And tossing snowballs at overheated droids. Today marks 13 years of SWTOR, and Massively OP's MJ and Larry will be…
The Stream Team: Soaking up the Christmas cheer in Final Fantasy XIV’s Starlight celebration - It's that time of year again for MOP's Chris and his Eorzea Sunday crew. It's the Starlight holiday season in Final Fantasy XIV and that means there's a (likely) adorable…
See a winter event we don’t have? Drop a comment! Happy holidays, everyone!
