Christmas, it’s mentioned, is a time for giving. Until you occur to dwell in my home, through which case Christmas is a time for gibbing. What higher method to have fun the vacation season than by blasting two barrels of buckshot right into a rampaging demon’s chest? Purple is probably the most festive color, in any case.
Sadly, festive first-person shooters are skinny on the bottom for some inexplicable motive. However as is so typically the case, the FPS group has crammed this smoking bullet-hole left by builders, decking PC gaming’s gore-spattered halls with boughs of holly by way of the facility of mods.
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Doom Christmas
Mod for: Doom 2
Festivity Score: Seven shotguns brimming
Doom Christmas is a straightforward but efficient texture pack for Doom 2, introducing a medley of festive sprites to id’s shooter sequel. The mod ties a bit of bow in your shotgun, plonks Santa hats on the imps and shotgun troopers, transforms the Cacodemons into big, glinting baubles, and provides holly wreaths to the exit doorways.
My favorite a part of the pack is the gun-toting Santas that exchange the usual possessed human, primarily because of their impressively gnarly loss of life animation. If you happen to ever wished to see jolly Saint Nick crumble like an overcooked Christmas turkey after being blasted by a rocket launcher, that is the mod for you.
The Twelve Days of Doommas
Mod for: Doom 2
Festivity ranking: Eight grenades exploding
This rapid-fire degree pack is sort of a fortifying shot of sherry on a frosty Christmas eve. The Twelve Days of Doommas includes 15 brief, sharp ranges, every of which was designed in honour of the Twelve Days of Christmas by together with the next:
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Twelve Hours of mappingEleven Shotgun shellsTen Sector limitNine Ache elementalsEight Former humansSeven Brainy spidersSix Energy spheresFive Arch-vilesFour CyberdemonsThree Harm floorsTwo KeycardsOne BFG
The result’s a motley assortment of livid gunfights boasting names like “Deck the underhalls” and “O, Tannenboom”. Truthful warning, it is a difficult wad—primarily due to all of the cyberdemons lumbering about. However as Christmassy Doom wads go, this is among the greatest.
Twisted Christmas
Mod for: Quake
Festivity ranking: Six beasts a slayin’
Twisted Christmas is one thing of a vacation basic. Launched method again in 1998, it sees you navigating an deserted shopping center, tramping up escalators and blasting by way of bookshops whereas avoiding nailgun-toting snowmen and hordes of Santa’s horrible little helpers. It is the FPS mod equal of It is a Fantastic Life, if Frank Capra’s cinema basic concerned James Stewart gunning down 100 diminutive Henry Travers’ all attempting to chew his knees off.
Twisted Christmas’ star has pale in gentle of newer festive Quake initiatives (which I will be discussing shortly). Whereas the elves are a enjoyable novelty, combating them turns into fairly annoying after some time, and there aren’t many different enemies to fluctuate issues up. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless some magic in how its mall-themed map unfolds. Moreover, what’s Christmas with no little custom, eh?
Arcane Dimensions’ Xmas Jam
Mods for: Quake
Festivity Score: 10 gunners gunning
Arcane Dimensions is among the greatest Quake mods round—a group of greater than 30 spellbinding ranges that bend the Quake engine into all method of obscene positions. The bottom model alone would make a high-quality current for the FPS-obsessive in your life. However nearly yearly because the mod’s launch, contributors impressed by its environments have come collectively for a Christmas-themed degree jam.
The result’s dozens of latest Quake maps constructed utilizing the additional enemies, weapons and so forth added by Arcane Dimensions. Xmas Jam 2021, for instance, featured fearsome arenas like Santa’s Fragtory, sprawling gothic mazes just like the Library of Forgotten Goals, and quirky experiments just like the honeycomb-themed Bee House for Christmas. In every Jam all of the maps are stitched collectively by a wintry hub degree, whether or not it is a glittering ice-cave or a chocolate-box village prowled by Christmas spirits.
Any considered one of these geometric choice containers is value your time. However should you want a bit of assist deciding the place to start out, the sooner Jams are likely to function extra overtly Christmas-themed ranges, whereas the later jams are usually extra diverse in theme and comprise bigger, extra formidable ranges.
Bloody Christmas/Santa’s Revenge
Mods for: Half-Life
Festivity Score: FIIIIIIIVE SEVERED HAMSTRIIIINGS
Each these mods are pretty brief, so I’ve bundled them collectively to fill out your stocking. Bloody Christmas sees Gordon Freeman attending the Christmas do at his new office—Antech Company, when a bunch of Marines crash the social gathering and begin blasting the scientists. After the preliminary space stuffed with Christmas timber and stacks of presents, it loses its festive really feel a bit. However blasting Marines with a Spas-12 to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock positively has its enchantment.
Weirdly, Santa’s Revenge additionally kicks off with Bobby Helms’ Christmas basic. However the state of affairs may be very totally different. Right here, Gordon has travelled to the North Pole to take down a blood-crazed Father Christmas. This mod tries a bit more durable to transform Half-Life right into a seasonal expertise, changing headcrab-zombies with horrible screaming snowmen, and the unique’s acrobatic feminine spies with the lumpiest elves you’ve got ever seen. It is fairly an outdated mod, so anticipate some compatibility points. However there’s sufficient novelty right here to tide you over till you are allowed to open your major presents.
Half-Life 2: Christmas Model
Mods for: Half-Life 2
Festivity Score: 4 Mix harm
Whereas there are just a few bespoke Christmas mods for Half-Life 2, like PCTS: A Publish Traumatic Christmas Particular and Santa’s Revenge 2 (which, so far as I can inform, isn’t really associated to the Half-Life 1 mod), I would not suggest them. Neither is particularly effectively made, and each are riddled with Web humour that has aged like a snowman in July.
Nonetheless, you may give common Half-Life 2 a Yuletide makeover by way of Half-Life 2: Christmas model. It is a assortment of seasonal Steam Workshop addons for Valve’s legendary sequel, together with a winter texture pack that dusts Metropolis 17 in a high-quality coating of snow, in addition to Santa uniforms for Civil Safety, and a candy-cane crowbar.
A Very Thiefy Christmas Particular
Mod for: Thief 2
Festivity Score: 12 lords for thievin’
OK, so Thief isn’t actually a first-person shooter, even whether it is first-person and does function capturing. However take into account this my shock present to you—the factor you did not put in your Christmas record—as a result of A Very Thiefy Christmas Particular may simply be one of the best festive mod I performed of all of them.
The premise finds Garrett unexpectedly answerable for Basso’s tavern over the vacations, having misplaced a drunken recreation of Poker together with his main fence and the closest factor he has to a buddy. Garrett awakens with a stinking hangover and a listing of Christmas chores to do, earlier than heading out into city to jolly-Saint-Nick just a few extra objects required for the tavern’s celebrations.
Contemplating the gimmicky nature of the mod, there’s an enormous quantity of effort on show in A Very Thiefy Christmas. For starters, it has its personal variant of Thief’s briefing cutscenes, the place the premise is relayed to you in storybook kind, together with The Evening Earlier than Christmas-style rhyming couplets. As soon as the mission begins correct, Garrett should brew a hangover treatment within the tavern’s kitchen earlier than setting about fixing up the inn for Christmas, bringing decorations down from the attic and cleansing up the privy with water arrows.
As soon as his chores are achieved, it is out into the snowy night time, the place the townsfolk are within the throes of Christmas festivities. The central sq. is bustling with exercise, youngsters assemble a snowman, a choir crooning out carols, throughout an enormous Christmas tree. Elsewhere, you will discover shopkeepers making ready presents and youngsters taking part in on the street.
There are a number of duties Garrett should full past the tavern, akin to hiring a prepare dinner to deal with Christmas dinner, and discovering a star for the highest of the tree. However whereas peculiar residents will tolerate your presence across the holidays, there is no Christmas truce between Garrett and the Metropolis Watch. So you will nonetheless have to sneak across the map with discretion, utilizing darkness and alternate passageways to finish targets.
Filled with all of the secrets and techniques, alternate passageways, and unusual asides you’d anticipate in a terrific Thief mission, A Very Thiefy Christmas Particular does a greater job than most correct video games of incorporating the Christmas spirit into the expertise.
