December in Gaming is Quiet... But That's Nothing New

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

It is almost December and subsequently the end of another year of too many games to play. Over the last 11 months, many titles have released across all platforms. Many of 2019’s game of the year contenders hit store shelves and digital marketplaces alike over the course of September to now. With “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order” and “Pokemon: Sword and Shield” releasing last Friday, it is almost completely safe to say I have no new games coming out to worry about until next year. And I have a strong feeling that others can say the same.

But we still have a whole month. It sounds like I am skipping December. Sure I am worked for the holidays but the month is anything but exciting when it comes to brand new game releases. A quick dive into the titles still to come for the remainder of 2019 proved to me that the final month of the whole decade is going to be one of the quietest yet in gaming. But that’s expected.

I revisited December and its game release schedule over the decade and found a pattern. The trend is that it is a quiet month for games coming out, especially given the fact that it follows some of the most jam-packed months in the form of October and November, even September as of late. So the big fall releases really are just fall and not holiday season after all.

DISCLAIMER: the games releases I researched for December 2010 to December 2018 exclude ports. I found a ton of notably great games with December release dates but those were ports to other platforms. I am strictly going by initial launch.


Let’s rewind to the decades’s beginning as we look at the silent month of brand new games December 2010 was. The year saw a lot of mobile games, naturally given the platform’s rise at the time. One worth talking about was “Infinity Blade” for its console-quality action on phone screens. “Battlefield Bad Company 2” and “World of Warcraft” got noteworthy expansions that month. And one of the earliest of the decade’s adventure game renaissance launched in December 2010 in the form of “Back to the Future.” But besides these games, there weren’t really any other big new launches. And even so, two of those are expansions.

The next year was one of the best in all of gaming. 2011 saw some of the best sequels and innovations yet but December failed to hold on to that legacy. “Star Wars: The Old Republic” is a worthwhile MMORPG for some given the story of where it came from but it isn’t like “Knights of the Old Republic,” “Battlefront” or even most recently “Jedi Fallen Order” levels of big. “Infinity Blade got a sequel that month too. But the main game that everyone was all about if they had a shiny new 3DS from earlier on in the year was “Mario Kart 7.” The game was very good and enjoyed by many and probably the only truly notable release of December 2011.

2012 was not as epic as the year before or after but it did have one of the best games of the entire year, maybe of the console generation for some, in the form of Far Cry 3. That was the only big game to drop in December 2012 though. I mean there were other releases of course but based on the legacy, reception and noteworthiness of all the games I found to have launched in the final month of the year we were all going to die, Ubisoft’s flagship shooter was the only important one I found.

Fast forward to the swansong of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and you’ll find a December that basically never happened. The only notably brand new titles were the launch of “The Walking Dead: Season Two” and “Max: The Curse of Brotherhood,” though the latter isn’t all that massive of a game release in comparison to some of the groundbreaking triple A games of 2013. Telltale's sequel launched with and would continue to hold on to success sure but it is essentially the final big title of that year.

In 2014, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were finally in more hands of consumers. Many gamers already had at least one of the new generation’s consoles for a year by the time December 2014 rolled around. And the month did have some games worth talking about. The Talos Principle is widely appreciated. Marvel’s Contest of Champions was a very popular mobile game, one that I personally know was a damn good time, even for someone who preferred a deeper console experience. And Ubisoft launched the ambitious racer, “The Crew.” After other driving games, including Ubisoft’s own sequel out did “The Crew” however, the once promising game feels less prominent now. Lastly, Nintendo and the still-very-alive but very-underplayed Wii U saw something fresh hit shelves. “Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker” is a unique puzzle-platformer and was actually a bigger game last year on the Switch, given the fact that its initial December 2014 Wii U launch was looked past by many.

Much like the prominence many 2015 games earlier on had, December's notable releases are actually pretty big. It surprisingly has three titles I think represent some of the best, or the potentially best, gaming offered in 2015. “Just Cause 3” is certainly buggy and suffers from stupidly long loading times but it was also greatly enjoyed and delivered an experience not unlike the well-regarded predecessor. But the two other games to come out then are more important. Of course with the Wii U’s aforementioned lack of attention, “Xenoblade Chronicles X” didn’t make the impact it should have. And then there was the launch of one of the biggest and most played multiplayer titles of the generation. “Rainbow Six: Siege” didn’t release in the state it is now but it did release regardless in December of 2015. So I think that the month had notable games, some of which are really good, and arguably breaks the seal of December being a month with few to no big titles.

As we move onto 2016, you’ll find another December that wasn’t too bad. We got “Super Mario Run” on iOS for starters. The game was the beginning of Nintendo's mobile push but it did things really well. The title felt like a genuine “Super Mario” platformer and didn’t bug you with microtransactions. Telltale continuing their pleasure of starting their adventure games’ release schedules in December dropped the third season of “The Walking Dead.” And Frank West’s most over-the-top zombie-filled romp launched at the perfect time with “Dead Rising 4’s” holiday themes. That game was a big release for sure and also broke the Xbox One exclusivity of its predecessor from a few years back. Lastly, after so many years of promises, delays, silence and perceived cancellations, “The Last Guardian” came out. And while not perfect, it was undoubtedly one of the most notable games to drop in 2016, even just in terms of PS4 games period.

2017 was one of the greatest years the industry has seen recently. The year was full of hit after hit, with the Nintendo Switch’s launch in particular making much of the buzz. In December 2013, the hybrid platform got a new “Xenoblade” title and unlike the quiet launch of “Xenoblade Chronicles X” on the Wii U three years prior, “Xenoblade Chronicles 2” got people talking. Of course it wasn't for everyone in the same vein as “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” or “Super Mario Odyssey;” however, it was a huge release for JRPG fans. And Nintendo has a lot of those. Aside from that though, the month was admittedly very quiet. “Hello Neighbor” was a pretty popular game upon launch in December of that year. But there’s not really anything else and that was a shame given the quality and quantity of games having released throughout 2017.

And lastly, we go back to the holiday season last year. Following games like “Spider-Man,” “Red Dead Redemption 2” and “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey,” December was going to have a hard time at giving us new things to buy and play. But it all changed with the release of one title. However first, let’s look at others. Like the previous title in the series, “Just Cause 4” came out in December. Unfortunately this was not one of the best games of 2018 though. It left a significantly lesser impact post-launch than its predecessors did. I know I was very disappointed by the game’s technicalities and felt some deja vu too much. Two smaller but still ironically huge games hit Xbox One finally in December. “Ashen” was a fresh “Souls-like” action game and “Below” was one of the year’s finest dungeon crawlers of the year. Those games probably stood out more for gamers than “Just Cause 4.” But the main draw of going to your local Gamestop in December last year, besides Christmas shopping, was to get “Super Smash Bros Ultimate.” In regards to game franchises and their names’ legacies, “Super Smash Bros” alone makes December 2018 mean as much as October with “Red Dead” and April with “God of War” did that year. The Switch debut of the party fighter was and continues to be super ambitious and a hell of a good time for everyone and anyone. And “Super Smash Bros Ultimate’s” December release definitely made a traditionally quiet month for game releases a lot louder.

But now we are entering a month quite different from last year’s December. This year, we got all the bit triple A titles in the winter, spring, summer and definitely in September, October and November. What December 2019 will bring us in terms of brand new titles, doesn’t do much for personally. I don’t feel like I am alone though. “Vampire the Masquerades” returns with “Coteries of New York” next month. And a spinoff the the “Darksiders” series is also coming out in the form of “Darksiders: Genesis.” These titles, mainly the latter, are somewhat notable. I think “Darksiders” has a relatively strong following. But overall if you compare them to the many big games released over the course of the year, it is hard not to see December as a very quiet send off for gaming in both 2019 and an entire decade of almost equally quiet Decembers.