Nerds like Christmas because nerds get gifts that are often nerd related. The one time a year you can push your secret geek agenda on all around you. Those uncles who roll their eyes at you playing video games suddenly are forced to go into a Gamestop and buy you one. All those Aunts who hate that you are an “adult who still plays with toys” has to go to Toys R’ Us and buy you a little Inside Out Sadness collectible. It is lovely. But even if you are alone on Christmas and don’t have cool families to buy you cool geek gifts you cannot afford yourself, you know Christmas can still be an awesome geek holiday for you, right? How so, you ask? Well, even if you are stuck home alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go, there are a TON of video games who put special codes into their games so that when you play on Christmas, you get some festive, hidden, holiday related Easter Egg that you cannot get if you play any other day of the year. It is a cool little way developers say thank you whilst also making sure their core audience isn’t fully alone on Christmas.
Here are 5 video games that have cool Easter Eggs hidden for the gamers who specifically play their games on Christmas day.
Christmas video game easter eggs
GTA V
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRmktDD6Qk&w=640&h=360]
Of course Rockstar are known for doing things like this, and past GTA’s are no exception. But GTA V took it one step further in many ways. Trading out guns for snowballs and jump suits for ugly sweaters, the bounty of things Rockstar do in GTA V for their audience is actually pretty insane.
Put it this way, make sure to visit your house on Christmas day and check your inventory. Yes, they even give you presents and a tree.
Gears of War Series
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppuNUI3M04A&w=640&h=360]
It is called Gearsmas in the Gears universe, and there are many different varieties of it across the many games. One of my personal favorites is the fact that in team matches, some enemy COGS have giant snowmen heads. There is something oddly satisfying about blowing away and chainsawing snowmen on Christmas day.
Wonder what this year’s Gearsmas will be like?
The Sims and Sim City 4
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxicMWiKQUs&w=640&h=360]
The Sims itself is no stranger to Easter Eggs that are Christmas related, and Sim City 4 takes it to new heights. Literally. By having a relaxing white blanket of snow cover your city.
But it doesn’t end there. You see, depending on how long you play on Christmas, it will keep snowing, intensely the whole time. This means that if you play long enough, you can, indeed, cover your entire city completely in snow. In other words. recreate Boston’s winter from 2014.
Minecraft
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR4YBGMOFu4&w=640&h=360]
It is a simple Easter egg where all they do is re-skin the chests from the game into Christmas gifts, but it is enough to keep fans of this sandbox game digging and digging for even longer. Keep in mind, though. This was from last year Christmas. Many speculate that Minecraft may have something completely different up its sleeve for this year’s Minecraft Christmas.
I guess we will just have to play on Christmas to see for sure.
Nights: Into Dreams
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfyqNSBsnjA&w=640&h=360]
Many do not remember this spectacular Sega Saturn game, and that is just a shame. A shame for the main reason that it was one of the first games to EVER switch up its coding based on the itnernal clock of the machine. In other words, this was one of the first EVER video games to change up and add Easter Eggs for gamers who played on Christmas day.
While the game normally consisted of flying through strange worlds, when you played this particular game on Christmas day, suddenly, everything was snowy. On top of that, there were Christmas trees and wreaths you could suddenly fly through (that were gold rings before and after that day).
So say what you want about Sega and how they may have lost the console war and become a shadow (the hedgehog) of who they used to be. But we should also give some credit where credit is due. Christmas Easter Eggs (which sounds like an oxymoron) would not be as popular and widepread today were it not for Sega.
So stuff that into your stocking!