Have fun the vacations the way in which Saint Nick supposed, by blasting via hordes of enemies in the perfect Christmas-themed FPS mods
Christmas, it’s stated, is a time for giving. Until you occur to reside in my home, by which case Christmas is a time for gibbing. What higher option to have fun the vacation season than by blasting two barrels of buckshot right into a rampaging demon’s chest? Purple is essentially the most festive color, in spite of everything.
Sadly, festive first-person shooters are skinny on the bottom for some inexplicable purpose. However as is so usually 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 via the ability of mods.
Doom Christmas
Mod for: Doom 2
Festivity Ranking: 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 slightly 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 due to their impressively gnarly loss of life animation. In the event you 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 score: 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:
- Twelve Hours of mapping
- Eleven Shotgun shells
- Ten Sector restrict
- 9 Ache elementals
- Eight Former people
- Seven Brainy spiders
- Six Energy spheres
- 5 Arch-viles
- 4 Cyberdemons
- Three Harm flooring
- Two Keycards
- One 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 finest.
Twisted Christmas
Mod for: Quake
Festivity score: Six beasts a slayin’
Twisted Christmas is one thing of a vacation traditional. Launched method again in 1998, it sees you navigating an deserted shopping center, tramping up escalators and blasting via bookshops whereas avoiding nailgun-toting snowmen and hordes of Santa’s horrible little helpers. It is the FPS mod equal of It is a Great Life, if Frank Capra’s cinema traditional concerned James Stewart gunning down 100 diminutive Henry Travers’ all making an attempt to chew his knees off.
Twisted Christmas’ star has light in gentle of more moderen festive Quake tasks (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 range issues up. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless some magic in how its mall-themed map unfolds. In addition to, what’s Christmas with no little custom, eh?
Arcane Dimensions’ Xmas Jam
Mods for: Quake
Festivity Ranking: 10 gunners gunning
Arcane Dimensions is among the finest 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 superb current for the FPS-obsessive in your life. However nearly yearly for the reason that 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 Dwelling 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 one among these geometric choice packing containers is price your time. However when you want slightly assist deciding the place to begin, the sooner Jams are inclined to function extra overtly Christmas-themed ranges, whereas the later jams are sometimes extra diverse in theme and include bigger, extra bold ranges.
Bloody Christmas/Santa’s Revenge
Mods for: Half-Life
Festivity Ranking: 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 celebration 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 attraction.
Weirdly, Santa’s Revenge additionally kicks off with Bobby Helms’ Christmas traditional. However the state of affairs could be very completely 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 count on some compatibility points. However there’s sufficient novelty right here to tide you over till you are allowed to open your predominant presents.
Half-Life 2: Christmas Model
Mods for: Half-Life 2
Festivity Ranking: 4 Mix harm
Whereas there are a couple of bespoke Christmas mods for Half-Life 2, like PCTS: A Put up Traumatic Christmas Particular and Santa’s Revenge 2 (which, so far as I can inform, will not be really associated to the Half-Life 1 mod), I would not advocate them. Neither is very properly 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 via Half-Life 2: Christmas model. This can be a assortment of seasonal Steam Workshop addons for Valve’s legendary sequel, together with a winter texture pack that dusts Metropolis 17 in a superb 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 Ranking: 12 lords for thievin’
OK, so Thief will not be 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 would possibly simply be the perfect 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 sport of Poker together with his main fence and the closest factor he has to a good friend. Garrett awakens with a stinking hangover and a listing of Christmas chores to do, earlier than heading out into city to jolly-Saint-Nick a couple of further gadgets 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 remedy 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 completed, 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 a large Christmas tree. Elsewhere, you may discover shopkeepers getting ready presents and youngsters taking part in on the street.
There are a number of duties Garrett should full past the tavern, reminiscent of hiring a cook dinner to deal with Christmas dinner, and discovering a star for the highest of the tree. However whereas bizarre residents will tolerate your presence across the holidays, there is no Christmas truce between Garrett and the Metropolis Watch. So you may nonetheless have to sneak across the map with discretion, utilizing darkness and alternate passageways to finish aims.
Filled with all of the secrets and techniques, alternate passageways, and unusual asides you’d count on in an excellent Thief mission, A Very Thiefy Christmas Particular does a greater job than most correct video games of incorporating the Christmas spirit into the expertise.