The best games to play at Christmas

The best games to play at Christmas depend on the cosy home in which you find yourself. But whether you’re looking for a rambunctious party game to play with the rest of the family — pre-Christmas lunch, let’s be realistic — or a long fantasy epic in which you can lose yourself from Christmas morning until you’re forced to return to the real world, there’s something for you.

Some games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Batman: Arkham Origins, are the Die Hard’s of holiday interactive entertainment: they’re set during the festive season, but not about Christmas. Some multiplayer games like Destiny 2 have seasonal events, and some fantasy titles just evoke the cosy, fuzzy feeling of the holidays. Here are some of the best.

The Escapist recaps

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s cosy familiarity will keep you busy long past the festive break and beyond, and it’s not like we’re getting The Elder Scrolls 6 anytime soon.
• Split Fiction, a bewitching co-op adventure where puzzles and action set pieces must be overcome together, is a great option for teens and above.
• Set in New York at Christmas, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales sees a new Spider-Man find his wall-climbing feet in the footsteps of Peter Parker.
• Since Jackbox party games can be played on a smartphone, your whole family can join in on the joke-telling, quiz-questioning chaos.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While it’s hard to say anything new about Bethesda’s most famous game, it still finds ways of releasing it: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been re-released again, this time for Nintendo Switch 2. However, this once again shows the timelessness of Bethesda’s endlessly replayable fantasy epic.

Fantasy and the festive season just go together, like bacon and sausages, roasted meats and potatoes, and your uncle and mid-afternoon snoring on the sofa. But Skyrim isn’t just one of the best Christmas games for adults because of its frosty fantasy setting: it’s the depth, freedom, and familiarity it offers that hits just right over the holidays.

While it’s perfectly possible to shut yourself away and return to the warm embrace of the Rift, perhaps refreshed with some of the best Skyrim mods, it’s also an accessible game to introduce to a member of the family yet to experience the epic adventure of the Dragonborn.

Split Fiction

Split-screen games like Split Fiction are one of the best Christmas games for the family, so long as your co-op partner has some amount of gaming literacy in their arsenal. That said, there aren’t many games like Split Fiction in the first place: this is a heady mix of genres, setting, and gameplay styles bashed together in a well-written, white-knuckle thrill ride.

While Split Fiction cannot be played solo — this is a resolutely co-op adventure — you and your split-screen partner will have a fabulous time together as two failing authors stuck in a machine stealing their ideas. One author is fantasy-focused, the other sci-fi, meaning you’ll bounce between gorgeous worlds in both styles.

Hazelight Studios never allows the action to get old as the gameplay changes as often as each setting. It’s a platformer, puzzler, third-person shooter and more, which is just one reason why Split Fiction should’ve at least been nominated for Game of the Year 2025 at the Game Awards.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

There are few things more festive than a snowy NYC. Okay, so I’ve never actually been, but I’ve seen enough movies and TV shows set in this backdrop to know that snow-laden metropolitan streets are inherently Christmassy. I’ve also played my fair share of games set during the holidays, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is one of the best games to play at Christmas, hands down.

Miles Morales is set between the Peter Parker-focused main games, and while it’s a smaller package overall, it remains an essential story in the series and an introduction to Harlem’s Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man. It’s not as social as a party or co-op game, unless you’re passing the pad, but the light white dusting of snow on the streets of the Big Apple and the series’ typically excellent web-swinging and combat make this a festive world to return to every year, just like your favourite Christmas film.

Jackbox Party Pack 3

One of the biggest hurdles in the way of getting the whole family to have a go at the best Christmas party games is non-gamers who aren’t experienced controller users. That’s why the great thing about Jackbox Party Packs is that you can join in with just your phone. It works seamlessly, and with 11 game collections available, there’s plenty to keep you and your family going for countless festive periods to come.

That said, the standout is Jackbox Party Pack 3, including joke-generator, Quiplash 2, Trivia Murder Party, where you need to answer quiz questions and play mini games to escape a serial killer, and more. There’s fun to be had in nearly all Jackbox games, but just know you’ll be hosting Christmas many more times if you introduce this to your loved ones this year. For more, check out our interview with Jackbox’s Production Director on Party Pack 11.

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