The Massively Overpowered 2019 winter holiday MMO roundup

December 19, 2019 10:00 AM

The holidays are here! Well, most of them are. Some of them might not be. And as is tradition here at Massively Overpowered, we have decked the halls with information about various ongoing winter holiday events. It’s cheaper than decking the halls with boughs of holly, and it’s a bit more on-brand for us anyway. All of those games have plenty of boughs of holly to spare, right? Go get some holly there.

We should warn you ahead of time, of course, that the majority of these events are in some way tacky, tawdry, filled with simply holiday kitsch, or otherwise pretty much a surface-level examination of tropes inexplicably ported into a game that otherwise has a developed and robust internal mythos (for given definitions of “robust,” maybe). Then again, if you’re taking time from smashing orcs to celebrate the holidays, that might be what you were looking for in the first place. Onward!

Apex Legends: Winter Express
If you’re one of those people who has a deep and abiding loathing of any sort of holiday shopping and eventually seeing the outfits leads to a Pavlovian response of wrath, well, this mode is for you.

Astroneer: Save the Holiday
“The Holidays in the Sol system have arrived, and due to unforseen circumstances, EXO Dynamics needs you to participate in project CHEER to save them! Delivery crates from an LRCV have crash landed all over the system, and EXO needs you to locate and recover these top secret experiments.” Running through January 17th.

Blade & Soul: Holiday gifts
Happy holidays, here’s some oil for your skin and a new major update in the background!

Champions Online: Winter Event
If you had missed recent news, just… make sure to spend that holiday currency here fast, all right? We know, it’s a familiar event, but still.

City of Heroes: Homecoming: Oh my gosh it’s winter in Paragon City again
Let me be dramatic I never thought we’d get one of these ever again.

Crossout: Snowstorm
Blow up an ice-breaking, present-laden armored vehicle. This is the best Mad Max Christmas special ever.

Dark Age of Camelot: Midwinter Festival Event
Experience bonuses, special clocks, quests, Midwinter gifts, and the Frozen Cavern all return.

The Division 2: Snowball event
Take some time away from grimly putting together the ruins of DC to have a snowball fight. Hopefully a less intense snowball fight than the setting might imply.

EverQuest II: Frostfell
Santa’s looking a bit… scarier than usual, isn’t he? Although maybe this is kind of normal in Norrath. The index for “scary” is different.

Fallout 76: Hunt down Santa Scorched
Parents don’t let your kids play this one or you’re going to have a weird time with any and all mall Santas. I mean, beyond the usual.

Final Fantasy XI: Starlight Celebration
Looks like some new-ish stuff in this year’s Starlight over in Vana’diel! This game really does set a high standard for maintenance modes, doesn’t it?

Final Fantasy XIV: Starlight Celebration
Actually, maybe the online Final Fantasy games just have high standards as their default settings.

Guild Wars 2: Wintersday
All right, there are a lot of days with winter, but the point is that this is when you get to have snowball fights and rescue toys! That’ll be fun.

GTA Online: Grotti Furia
“Los Santos is getting into the holiday spirit in a big way. Local businesses, including The Diamond Casino & Resort, are decking their halls with towering trees, boughs of holly and wreathes of glittering tinsel. Retail workers have been driven halfway insane stocking the shelves with crate after crate of holiday-themed clothing, accessories and weaponry. And Weazel News’ crackpot weather team have even forecast a rare spate of snowfall in the coming days, meaning you and your buddies can get together and indulge in an honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned snowball fight.”

Heroes of the Storm: Winter Event
The toys are back in town.

H1Z1: Holiday-themed outfits
Ho-ho-ho, please play our game and pretend it’s festive while ignoring any potential Damoclesian swords!

Kingdom Under Fire 2: Golden Holidays
“The month of December brings not only new content, but additional rewards with 100% additional gold boost for players through January 7th of 2020, so that they can finance their war efforts more intensely during the holidays. As part of the holiday celebration, players will get presents on 3 special days throughout December 2019 to support them on their adventures in Bersia, with the first one taking place on December 12.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iNle-mJiTA&feature=youtu.be

Lord of the Rings Online: Yule Festival
It’s another year of celebrating in Lord of the Rings Online while trying to ignore the fact that you’ve had like a hundred of these festivals while getting to Mordor in the first place and according to the actual story there wasn’t even time for one. That’s not the point here.

Mortal Online: Krampus
Ugh. Remember when the whole Krampus myth was this weird little thing discussed in obscure corners of the internet rather than this omnipresent “monster to beat up in December” thing that it’s become subsequently? I miss those days.

Neocron: SANTABOT

DO WHILE list.check.count < 2
     DO Check(list)
          IF "naughty" PRESENTS = 0
          IF "nice" PRESENTS = 3
     LOOP
     list.check.count +1
LOOP

Neverwinter: Winter Festival of Simril
Wait just one cotton-picking minute. Your city’s name is “Neverwinter.” How do you have a winter festival? That shouldn’t be possible! What other lies are you telling us?!

OrbusVR: Festival of Strangers
Well, this is definitely strange. You have me there.

Otherland Next: Xmas Event
“Help Kervin get rid of robbers trying to steal from him.” Sounds familiar…

Pirates of the Burning Sea: Christmas content
I suppose the benefit of having something set in more-or-less the real world is that you don’t really need to invent a new holiday, huh? We can assume that actual pirates celebrated Christmas. Or they would have if they weren’t all stealing food and getting scurvy.

Red Dead Online: Winter Weather Warning
“The holiday spirit has taken hold in the five states. Red Dead Online will be ringing in the holiday season over the next few weeks – with winter weather setting in, limited-time Festive Showdown Modes, decorations at your Camp and Moonshining Shack, gifts and more to tide you over.”

RIFT: Fae Yule
Maybe RIFT players feel more apprehensive or perturbed than celebratory, but here’s the holiday just the same!

RuneScape: Christmas event
I appreciate that the holiday armor here is more about faintly festive decor rather than just “and here’s another Santa suit.” That’s some commitment. Yes, it’s probably because RuneScape has likely already done the Santa suits, let me have this.

Sea of Thieves: Holiday quests
One of those games wherein you could sing Oscar the Grouch’s song about Christmas and have it be appropriate, especially since Sea of Thieves involves taking presents back from people anyhow. Wait, now I’m thinking about Oscar the Grouch and I got real sad.

Secret World Legends: Krampusnacht
You see what I mean about the whole Krampus thing?

Skyforge: Winter Advent Calender
Ah, thus always to Skyforge, a series of celebrations of the holiday in bite-sized format. Which has actually mostly passed by the time you read this, but hey.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Life Day
Of course it’s Life Day.

Star Wars Galaxies Legends: Life Day
Of course it’s Life Day.

SWGEmu: Life Day
Of course it’s Life Day!

Star Wars Galaxies: Empire in Flames
It’s… not Life Day? It’s Boonta Eve? We’ll take it.

The Cycle: Miracle Over Neptune
“Every year prospectors across the galaxy gather to commemorate “The Miracle Over Neptune.” This legendary rescue operation on a doomed space station in the early days of space exploration reminds us of the need to stick together, give to those less fortunate, and keep hope alive even at the worst of times.”

Ultima Online: Christmas event
There’s also the last major update of the year; that’s probably a bit more exciting for players, huh?

World of Tanks: Holiday Operations
Joy to the world, except for the target you’re shelling five miles away. That spot is probably not feeling very joyous.

World of Warships: New Year Celebration
What better way to celebrate the new year than by sinking something? Don’t answer that. The mobile version has a new December event too!