The holidays are a great time for rewatching your favorite holiday film – Elf, Gremlins, even Die Hard are a few I like to rewatch every holiday season. But what I’ve been wondering is “are there any holiday themed video games?” It doesn’t exactly have to be specifically about the holiday season, like a licensed ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ game, but more of the setting and tone.
Tis the season for warm blankets and hot chocolate, cuddled up by the fire – peripherals in hand, ready to game. After ‘extensive’ research, we’ve come up with 5 PC games to play when you’re starting to feel festive. Because of the nature of the holidays, it’s entirely subjective as to what ‘feels’ like the holidays. As long as it makes you feel cozy and at peace, anything can be a holiday game.
The titles mentioned in this article are going to center around the holiday season as the main setting, or at least a component of the game’s DLC. Some of these titles may be a bit older and can run decently on most modern hardware.
We’ll also go over the system requirements for each game and recommend systems if you’re looking to make a purchase to dive in before the holidays.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
While the sequel (currently) is a PlayStation 5 exclusive, Insomniac Games have recently put both prequels on Steam, letting PC users swing around New York City as either Spider-Men. While the first game is great at telling Peter Parker’s origin story and the struggles he faces in his early years as the titular hero, Spider-Man: Miles Morales incorporates a similar coming-of-age story with Miles front and center.
More importantly, Miles Morales’ story takes place mainly around the holiday season. It’s especially apparent swinging around a snow-covered Manhattan, with the main streets being adorned with lights. If there’s a game that makes you feel festive without the pressures of the holiday season, Spider-Man: Miles Morales might be the one.
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel Core i5-4670, 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060
- Storage: 75 GB available space
If you’re right at the cutoff for the recommended specs, you should expect 60 FPS gameplay at a 1080p resolution. However, if you’re looking to enable raytracing or if your system has a higher resolution monitor, we recommend hardware with a little more power.
PC Recommendation
If you’re looking for a decent upgrade for other AAA titles without breaking the bank, we have the Gaming RDY SLMBG221. It comes equipped with an Intel® Core™ i7-13700F, 16GB DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.
This system is perfect for AAA games at 1080p and can perform quite admirably at 1440p.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
While the sequel takes place in Washington DC, the first game is set in a post-pandemic New York City. It doesn’t specifically take place around the holidays, instead it’s frozen in time. The in-game events unraveled during the holidays and left the city in a perpetual state of holiday cheer and confusion.
To some, the gameplay loop of The Division falls under ‘loot-and-shoot.’ There’s a general story campaign to follow and missions to complete – but a large part of what made The Division great was the ‘Dark Zone.’ It was an area filled with elite-level enemies and other players seeking out loot.
Think ‘Escape from Tarkov’ except when another player engages with another player, the hostile player is marked as a ‘rogue agent’ and is signaled to the rest of the server as a bounty. It’s unlikely that there will be that many active players in the Dark Zone nowadays, but the standard campaign is still worth a run-through for fans of third person shooters.
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel Core i7-3770
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970
- Storage: 40 GB available space
PC Recommendation
Similarly to Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Tom Clancy’s The Division is an older title, and the system requirements is assuming 1080p at 60 FPS. For an older title like this, it’s safe to assume that most modern hardware exceeds the system requirements. Because this is a third-person shooter that may require a bit more finesse and high-framerates, the system we’re recommending is the Gaming RDY SLHBG226.
It boasts an Intel® Core™ i5-13400F, 16 GB DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4060. These components are great for modern AAA titles running at 1080p, 60 FPS and a great starting point for anyone looking to jump into PC gaming for the first time.
Dead Rising 4
Much like Tom Clancy’s The Division, Dead Rising 4 takes place during the holiday season and serves as a backdrop to the chaos of a post-pandemic city. However, unlike The Division, Dead Rising 4 has zombies, lots and lots of zombies.
A big part of Dead Rising 4 is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Though thematically, a zombie apocalypse is nothing to be cheery about, it’s the cheekiness of the game design that makes Dead RIsing 4 the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ of video games. Combining items to make oddball weapons to mow down hordes of zombies have never felt more festive.
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel Core i7-3770
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 970
- Storage: 50 GB available space
PC Recommendation
This recommendation is going to be a little different than the others mentioned above. For Dead Rising 4, the engine limits the game to either 30, 60, or variable – which is practically an uncapped framerate limited to 300 FPS. For those looking for high-framerate gameplay at higher resolutions than 1080p, look no further than the Gaming RDY Y60BG204.
The Gaming RDY Y60BG204 is rocking an Intel® Core™ i9-13900KF, 32 GB DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4070. It’s a bit overkill for Dead Rising 4, but this system should have no issues pushing the framerate to the absolute limit.
Batman: Arkham Origins
This would be the second superhero game on the list, except with our favorite brooding bat this time. Batman: Arkham Origins is the third game in the series, developed by WB Games Montreal while Rocksteady Studios was working on Batman: Arkham Knight. Story wise, it follows our caped crusader in his early years at Batman, taking place 8 years before the events of Arkham Asylum.
The setting takes place during Christmas Eve in Gotham City, where a $50 million bounty is placed on a young Batman. Gotham City’s usual suspects then go after Batman in hopes of claiming the bounty.
Because it takes place during the holidays, you can expect to see a bit of holiday décor around Gotham City – it’s kind of like playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales, except a lot more dark and foggy.
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel Core i5-750
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 560
- Storage: 20 GB available space
PC Recommendation
As you can see, Batman: Arkham Origins is pretty light when it comes to system requirements. It’s one of the more optimized games in the series, allowing for systems in the last 10 years to run the game at 1080p, 60 FPS. But if you’re looking to run the game natively at 4K resolution at higher framerates, the PC I would recommend for this is the RDY Lancool 001. The other options I’ve mentioned above in the article will all do just fine, but the system recommended here should be enough to also play Arkham Knight at 4K resolution with high framerates.
The RDY Lancool 001 has an Intel® Core™ i7-14700KF, 32GB DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4080 – plenty of power to ensure a smooth, 4K, 60FPS experience.
Yakuza 5
Like the other games on the list, the events of Yakuza 5 take place around December – but unlike the other games in the series, Yakuza 5 features 5 different fictional towns in Japan. Story wise, the holidays aren’t the focus, but there is a mission in Yakuza 5 in which one of the main characters, Taiga Saejima dresses up as Santa Claus to save Christmas.
To keep it short, please play Yakuza. It’s a fantastic series that doesn’t take itself too seriously with plenty of silly and serious moments.
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3770
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 570
- Storage: 32.5 GB available space
PC Recommendation
By these spec requirements, the PC recommended is the Gaming RDY Y40BG202. With an Intel® Core™ i7-13700KF, 32GB DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, it’ll ensure excellent 4K, 60 FPS gameplay for the Yakuza series.
This will also ensure that you’re ready for the recently released title from the Yakuza developers – “Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name” and “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” which releases in late January 2024. These titles are usually not terribly heavy spec wise, and the RTX 4070 Ti should ensure that any future Yakuza titles will run great.
