Which Halloween gaming special event is your favorite?

Every game which is going to have a Halloween-themed event has one going on, so let’s talk about the ones we’re enjoying the most. Here at BW HQ, we don’t usually like to get too gatekeepy or say one thing is objectively better than another — but hey, that doesn’t mean we can’t make you do it for us.

Among Blizzard titles, my personal favorite Halloween event are all the one-off scenarios of Junkenstein and co. in Overwatch 2. They raised the bar yet again this year with their Diablo 4 tie-in event, which is a ton of fun, in addition to reviving the older game modes too. I do enjoy the Halloween skins as well, but many of them are too rich for my penny-pinching blood — though I definitely appreciate the new-ish loadout feature, so I can just set all my characters in their costumes once, and then swap back into their normal skins and sprays with the touch of a button. Plus, many of the skins tagged as “Halloween” in-game aren’t distinctly so, which I’m not really feeling. The Pumpkin Mei skin, for instance, is obviously Halloween-inspired, so I like using that one for this time of year, but I’m less jazzed about the ones where the characters are just kind of in a fun costume, like Viking Torbjorn.

Oddly, I haven’t been into the Headless Horseman event in WoW for a very long time. Maybe it’s the fact that the Sinister Squashling is so freaking annoying. Maybe it’s the fact that the candy buckets are such good XP I burn myself out on them every year on multiple alts. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve run it repeatedly for the past — oh dear god — nearly 20 years, but even with the facelift it got this year I’m pretty apathetic about it. I do always hang on to a novelty wand or two, just to zap party members into Leper Gnomes when they least suspect it.

Then there are the events like the ones currently available in Hearthstone. You don’t really have to engage with it in a special spooky way — you can earn most of the rewards just via regular gameplay, making it more of a fun perk than a whole extensive holiday event.

So, which Halloween event is your overall favorite? Do you prefer it if these items and treats are one-offs, only during the holiday, or do you prefer it if they stick around so you can have an oasis of the best holiday in the middle of summer? Is there a non-Blizzard game with a particularly charming Halloween event you’d like to share? Or, do you take this time to opt for horror titles which insist on being delightfully creepy year-round, like Cult of the Lamb?