In this hectic time of year, deciding on gifts for friends and family should be the easiest item on your holiday To-Do List. Fanbase Press is here to help with the best recommendations for the must-play video games as suggested by our staff and contributors. Games make great gifts for the geeks in your life, especially for the holidays where the requisite number of players is usually right around the corner.

Title: Stray
Recommended by: Carl Wilson

You play as a cat.
You play as a cat on an epic journey to re-join its family.
You play as a cat that can get its head stuck in a paper bag.
You play as a cat in a future world where robots have replaced humans.
You play as a cat that can save the robots.
You play as a cat in a puzzle game environment, requiring stealth and sneakiness.
You play as a cat with a dedicated Meow button.
You play as a cat in a neon-lit underground city.
You play as a cat with a little backpack.
You play as a cat.

Cost: $29.99
Click here to purchase.

Title: Elden Ring
Recommended by: Carl Wilson

FromSoftware are the developers behind the Soulsborne series of videogames, which includes Demon’s Souls (2009), the Dark Souls trilogy (2011-2016), Bloodborne (2015), and Sekiro Shadows Die Twice (2019). This is a videogame pedigree that incorporates oppressive environments, punishing combat, frequent deaths, and obscured narratives; it also happens to be a list of some of the best fantasy role-playing videogames ever made, with Elden Ring being the latest entry now warmly invited to sit beside the bonfire.

Elden Ring is the open-world version of a FromSoftware experience, which means that every nook can feature heart-breaking beauty, yawning horrors, and astonishing creativity, but you now have a little more say in which hole you wish to go die in first, and you will find more ways to meet your end than ever before. George R. R. Martin provided the worldbuilding for Elden Ring, but it is still a harrowing and equally bonkers journey, where a panoply of Harryhausen nightmares jostle alongside dragons, gigantic “spider hands,” skittering creatures, and things with human faces where there would ideally be none. On the plus side for the “tarnished” hero, you can now ride a horse, but these games are never about being easy or fair.  

Cost: $59.99
Click here to purchase.

Title:  The Callisto Protocol
Recommended by: Barbra Dillon

This video game is not for the faint of heart.  It is, however, for the truest of horror fans and the savviest of survival gamers.  The Callisto Protocol is a next-generation take on survival horror from the mind of Glen Schofield. Blending atmosphere, tension, and brutality with terrifying moments of helplessness and humanity, the game immerses players in a pulse-pounding story where unspeakable horrors lurk around every corner. It is set 300 years in the future in Black Iron Prison, a maximum-security penitentiary located on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. When inmates begin to transform into monstrous creatures, the prison is thrown into chaos.

If you’re unsure about the look, feel, and gameplay of this newly released game, be sure to check out the 3-part docuseries featuring horror greats Alec Gillis, Tom Savini, Robert Kirkman, and more who describe everything you could ever want to know about this horrifically haunting third-person survival horror game.

Cost: $59.99-$79.99
Click here to purchase.