Holidays are one of the best parts of the year. Recognizable imagery combined with moral messages about the lives we live has led to a plethora of movies, comics, and television shows to center themselves or at least an episode around nearly every holiday imaginable. Sadly, this kind of celebration is very rare in video games as they either take place in their own worlds or at an unstated moment of time separated from any holiday.
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It’s only natural that gift giving to the gamer in your life would shift more and more to physical items.
There is an exception to this, however: Christmas. Many video games seem to throw up their hat and celebrate this enchanting holiday, either setting themselves during the season or having some sort of event to celebrate the holiday itself. While you can find the occasional celebration of Halloween in gaming, when making a list of the best holiday celebrations it will be almost entirely a list of Christmas events. So let’s look over some of the best portrayals of holiday seasons in gaming!
Do You Know Where Any Santas Are?
Release Date
August 14, 2025
Developers
Dreamcast, Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC
Sega’sShenmuehas a very unique portrayal of the Christmas season rarely seen in video games: a gray and melancholy one. Sure, the local street Santa is dressed in a bright red as he tells you to go shopping, but that is in contrast to the gray atmosphere and the cold that surrounds Dobuita.
While Shenmue has many day-specific events, players will immediately notice that Christmas isn’t one of the days when something happens. In fact, Ryo goes about that day as if it isn’t anything special. It’s only a few days later that he and Nozomi realize they completely missed the opportunity to have a romantic Christmas celebration with each other because of his quest for revenge. This sad and meaningful portrayal of the holiday earns Shenmue a placement on this list.
9Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective HD
No Sign of the Ghost of Christmas Present
June 21, 2025
Xbox Series S|X, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC
OpenCritic Score
While Shu Takumi’s most famous Christmas-related moment was when he had Phoenix Wright yell out “Almost Christmas means it wasn’t Christmas” in the first Ace Attorney game, there is actually another game he wrote while working for Capcom that embodies the Christmas Spirit more: Ghost Trick Phantom Detective.
Taking place on Christmas Eve, many of the game’s puzzle areas are decked out with holiday imagery such as Christmas Trees and other decorations. There is nothing that quite invokes the Christmas Spirit for bachelors like spending time with a dear pet, which is yet another reason why the Missile stage of the game is great and why he is one of thebest dogs in gaminghistory.
8Persona 4
Reach Out to the Season
Jul 18, 2025
Playstation Vita, Playstation 4, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, PC
While Christmas in Western countries is celebrated as a holiday about family gatherings and togetherness, in Japan it’s seen almost exclusively as a romantic celebration between couples. Thus a lot of video games follow suit and have their Christmas events be focused around romance. One of the best examples of this is Atlus’Persona 4, where the player can spend a romantic evening with one of theirSocial Links.
The heart-to-heart conversation that the player can have with a girlfriend of their choice is a fantastic conclusion to the player’s time in Inaba, as before the Golden ports of Persona 4, this was the last bit of free time the player was given in the entire game before being forced into the final dungeon. A peaceful and romantic session before challenging the new year is a perfect feeling for a Christmas event to have and thus should be mentioned on this list.
Snowball Fight Time
June 12, 2025
Rockstar Games
Playstation 2, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC
Taking place over the course of an entire American school year, it was only natural that Rockstar Games’ Bully would have an entire chapter based around the holiday season. This chapter includes all the classics: Christmas trees, throwing snowballs, helping a greedy homeless man drive all the professional mall Santas out of town, the works.
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While Bully, of course, takes the typical Rockstar style of cynicism and dark humor to the holiday, it is still very nice to see them attempt to portray the Christmas season in their typical gameplay style. If you want a fun time for Christmas, consider loading up your old save of Bully and replay this chapter. Just don’t get too close to that “Santa Claus” when you do.
6Yakuza 5 Remastered
Inheritor of Christmas Dreams
August 14, 2025
Playstation 4, Playstation 5, PC
Sega’s Like a Dragon franchise has a habit of setting its games during the holiday season. Ever since the first game in the series, Kiryu Kazuma has had a habit of fighting someone atop the Millenium Tower once a year. The series has even played into this occasionally, filling the city with decorations and even playing Silent Night as the credits theme for Yakuza 2.
No game in the series has played into the Christmas season more than 2015’s Yakuza 5 though, as this game heavily features Hokkaido’s yearly snow festival (including a cameo from that year’s Snow Miku) and plenty of Christmas-themed substories about famous tales like the Little Match Girl and even somewinter-centric minigames.The most iconic of these substories is, of course, the one where Saejima has to don a Santa outfit as he thrashes a group of thugs. The game even allows you to wear this outfit at all times during the post-game, allowing you to celebrate Christmas in style as a butt-kicking Santa.
5Fate/Grand Order
Christmas Every Year
July 02, 2025
Type-Moon, Lasengle
Android, IOS
Mobile gacha games love the Christmas season as they give the developers a perfect chance to dress your favorite characters in festive outfits for a unique banner to pull on. Type-Moon’s Fate/Grand Order has a surprisingly generous Christmas celebration each year though, as instead of forcing the player to gacha for a holiday banner, a single Santa-themed servant is given to all players for absolutely free.
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Which servant is given the Santa treatment can feel a bit random at times, but it is claimed by the developers that they are chosen based on which character was pulled for the most in the past year. With popular servants like Jeanne Alter and Karna of course topping those charts and receiving the costumes. The yearly Santa servant is always given to players around the middle of December and truly feels like a gift from the developers, perfect for the Christmas season.
Hope you’re all ready for Santa Abby to hit the English version of the game in December 2026.
4Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams
Sega’s First Christmas
August 14, 2025
Sega Saturn, PC
Every young gamer is destined to spend the holiday season begging their parents for a new video game based on advertising they see. During the ’90s, Sega decided to go further beyond and use Christmas itself to advertise the season by making an entire demo disc for NiGHTS into Dreams that was based on the Holiday!
Christmas NiGHTS takes the first levels of the game and completely reskins them to be holiday-themed, with snow and gifts galore. The new goal in this version of the game is to find a missing star for a tree, defeating the boss who has it. Being a simple demo, this game, of course, has to land low on this list, but it still deserves to be mentioned due to its very interesting place in gaming history and how memorable of a marketing strategy it was.
Shopping for the Season
June 07, 2025
Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC
Nothing says ‘Christmas’ more than bloody zombies and gore, right? The initial choice for Capcom to set the fourth entry in theirDead Risingfranchise during the holiday season may seem bizarre at first, but makes more sense once the player remembers where this franchise sets its games: a gigantic mall. Malls always decorate themselves for the holiday season, so setting a game against that backdrop can lead to some great imagery and commentary about the state of consumerism.
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The constantly blaring classic Christmas music and tunes over the mall’s loudspeakers will get on Frank West’s nerves just as much as it gets on yours, but he has to deal with it because he has a job to do here. While this game’s depiction of a mall during the holiday season is fantastic, it must sadly fall low on this list due to the controversial quality of Dead Rising 4’s gameplay as a whole.
2Parasite Eve
Christmas Horror
June 21, 2025
Square Soft
Playstation One
Very few places in the world make as big a deal of celebrating Christmas as Rockefeller Center does during Christmastime, as they always sport the world’s largest Christmas tree to celebrate the season. Despite this being a famous landmark in one of the largest cities in the world, there are very few games that feature it. It even took several Spider-Man games for players to see it there! However, there is actually a near-forgotten Square Enix JRPG which prominently features Rockefeller Center: Parasite Eve.
Parasite Eve takes place on an absolutely disastrous evening for the citizens of New York as genetic monsters attack the town and melt people. The game’s grim atmosphere manages to make even the Christmas decorations and other seasonal imagery have a horror edge to them, and that, of course, includes the large Christmas tree. If you want to add some extra edge to your holiday celebrations this year, then consider trying out Parasite Eve.
1Sakura Wars
Sega’s Greatest Christmas
Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gameboy, Playstation 2, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 4
Games Featuring Christmas
While there are numerous video games that play or mention classic Christmas music in some shape or form, there are almost none that attempt to create a new song that celebrates the holiday. That rarity is what makes Sakura Wars’ Christmas celebrations so special. This franchise has celebrated the holiday in four of its six games and each time has performed a stellar show as it does.
Sakura Wars’ trademark Christmas song is an original one called Kiseki no Kane, also known as Miracle Bell, which features the Flower Division dressed as angels as they sing about winter and the love this holiday brings out in people. Anyone who loves this holiday should consider playing Sakura Wars or at least add Kiseki no Kane to their Christmas music playlists.
7 Games to Get Players in the Holiday Spirit
Get into gear because the holidays are here! Here’s a present containing the best video games to get players into the spirit of the season!
