While it may be hard to believe for some, Halloween is nearly here. People all around the world have been gearing up to celebrate the spooky holiday, with plenty of Halloween iconography to be found across most forms of media. This also includes gamers, who are marking the occassion by carving up pumpkins into creative gaming-themed jack-o-lanterns.
The first inklings of All Hallows' Eve's arrival began appearing as early as August, wih Pokemon releasing a Halloween decoration featuring Gengar. The impressive piece of merchandise transforms the fitting Ghost-type pocket monster into a Pumpkin King variant, sitting atop a jack-o-lantern. However, its the gamer-made jack-o'-lanterns that have really caught the community's eye.
Posted across a variety of different pages on Reddit, gamers have come out in force to show off their gaming-themed pumpkin carvings. On r/GodofWar, user u/drmoo314 shows off their impressive carving dedicated to the 2018 title, which features silhouettes of Kratos and Atreus surrounded by nordic runes. Over on r/Witcher3, user u/gallant-jujube displays their accurate carving of Gwynbleidd, the medallion carried by Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher series. The r/zelda Reddit page is home to u/freddypie456's impressive 3D sculpt of the infamous moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask in all its menacing glory.
Witcher pumpkin from Witcher3
In addition to gaming-themed jack-o-lanterns spiking in frequency, so too are the carved pumpkins appearing in games themselves. In Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's Zombies mode, all zombies are currently wearing carved pumpkins over their heads, which act as bonus points for players able to shoot them off. The game has also added an all-new item called Jack-O-Lantern Drops which, when opened, either yields a trick by spawning a Mimic, or treat in the form of weapon upgrades and attachments.
Beyond adding Halloween cosmetic overlays and LTMs, some games are coming out with full-blown expansions just in time for the spooky holiday season. Co-op horror title Phasmaphobia just revealed its "Nightmare" update will be arriving October 25, just in time for Halloween. Developer Kinetic is remaining coy about details of the update, simply posting a single image on Twitter making the announcement. In a world where retail stores already have Christmas decorations up, its certainly heartening to see the gaming industry solely focused on Halloween through the end of the month.
Although most physical retailers may be gearing up for the rest of the holidays, digital storefronts are firing on all spooky cylinders. The Epic Games Store currently has a massive Halloween sale going on, and Xbox recently launched its Shocktober Sale, which offers discounts of up to 70% off over 200 games. Whether its carving up pumpkins in real life or carving up enemies in a horror game, video games and Halloween are a frighteningly good combination.