Seasonal challenges have turned into a video game hellscape

Hey, how’s your Halloween going? I’ve been spending the last two weeks with thumb tacks and red string, trying to connect all of the seasonal events in all the online games I’m playing, and desperately collecting time-limited witch hats or bat cosmetics. It’s been a sobering experience, and as such, I have to collectively beg all developers: please stop running these seasonal events, or at least space them out a little.

Let’s take a look at what I’ve been dealing with.

Sea of Thieves has a monthly event, along with a double XP week, that’s all about spooky skeletons and the new murder fort they’ve built. OK, cool, I’m planning on really digging into that this week, which means I’m completely missing out on Overwatch’s Halloween Terror, which comes with a new Ana skin, so my collection’s just going to have to go incomplete.

Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online both have Halloween matches with rewards and, oh God, I actually have to complete my Red Dead battle pass.

I haven’t played Anthem since launch but that has a Halloween event too. So does Fallout 76. At least Warframe has the decency to create a seasonal event that I can knock out in an afternoon, so that’s crossed off. There are some really cute League of Legends skins, including a witchy Miss Fortune, but I’m not made out of time, so there’s no way I can get the Prestige edition. I can’t bring myself to complete the World of Warcraft Halloween grind, even though there’s a rare mount, because I am so tired and so vaguely stressed by all of these spooky seasonal events!

Listen, developers, you guys know that all of these games are rolling this stuff out at the same time, right? I promise that no one will be mad if, for Halloween, you just had a normal game that was the same as the rest of the year. If you want to go wild, maybe give players a little virtual candy. That’d be fine.

I’ve been doing things in the real world, like going out and carving pumpkins and helping my friends make tissue paper ghosts, and that’s great, but I can feel the siren call of approximately four million online games trying to lure me in with their Halloween events. That doesn’t work anymore! Now, I look upon pumpkins and witches and feel nothing but scorn in my heart.

After this, we have a month to recover. In December, this whole carousel starts again for Christmas. My gift to myself, during that most holy season, will probably be to play some of the excellent single-player games that have come out this year.

I love online games that constantly evolve. But the constant FOMO, combined with time-sensitive windows, is simply too much. I am so stupid and so tired and I can no longer maintain rewards spreadsheets. Sorry, online games, it’s not me: it’s you, and your incessant stream of cute witch hats and mummies.