How do you give gifts to people at Christmas time? At the Benson household we used to sit around my parents' bed and pass unwrapped presents to each other in plastic bags, generally while eating everything in our chocolate selection box. Or, is your family one that goes for something a little more medieval? Launching presents at one another from trebuchets? Did you not know that bit of ancient history? Me neither, but the Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition mod adds that feature in so I must assume it's true.
To celebrate the Christmas holidays, Microsoft has released a mod for its newly rejuvenated Age of Empires. The mod's a graphical overhaul of its strategy game of warring kings. It does the things you'd expect for a wintry mod, adding snow to the trees, dusting the ground with ice, and replacing berry bushes with piles of presents that your villagers forage gifts from to give to their families. You know, the usual stuff.
See it at work in the trailer below (or here if you're reading on mobile):
Advert
The mod also adds presents to the town centre, replaces arrows with icicles, spears with candy canes, boulders from trebuchets with presets, and cannons now fire snowballs. Oh, and your Mangonels projectiles have been turned into snowflakes - showing once and for al how tough snowflakes can be.
You can download the mod through Steam at the moment and it will be available until some time in January (the date is still to be determined). After that, the mod will continue to work but it won't be available to download. So, if you like the sound of raining merry war on your enemies, you'll want to take a moment out of your Christmas time to get this mod installed.
It's great that a game's finally given us some insight to the perpetual state of war that Lapland finds itself in. After all, why would Father Christmas be trying so hard to ingratiate himself with nations around the world if he weren't trying to forge either an alliance to win his war in Lapland once and for all or to establish a relationship for asylum, should the war turn against him.
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft