Which MMO does Halloween best?

I really like the autumn and halloween events in MMOs! When I saw ArenaNet announce the date for their Halloween event (it starts today, by the way) for Guild Wars 2 this year, I started to wonder: What other MMOs do them? It is a bit of a silly question because I play these MMOs, I should know they’re doing such events and I should immediately remember which ones, right? But I don’t. At least, I don’t remember them in each of the MMOs.

When it comes to Guild Wars 2, I know that they have a labyrinth that you can roam through, kill bosses and earn loot – if you manage to find a big enough group who knows what they’re doing. I like to get in there once in a while and kill a couple of bosses before it gets too tiresome again. There is no beginning and no end. You could basically stay in there 24/7. In Lion’s Arch, the Mad King will appear and play “Your Mad King Says”. Now this one I like much more, even though it is just a little game. But it’s short and still has this great halloween atmosphere! I also love that Lion’s Arch gets redecorated for this event. However, I don’t remember if the “new” Lion’s Arch gets decorated as much as the old one did. There is also a jumping puzzle and I know ArenaNet does those very well usually! I haven’t been able to do them properly before my hand injury and I surely can’t do them now, though. Here is a list of all the activities – I just saw that they added more activities last year when I wasn’t really playing Guild Wars 2, so I completely missed that.

Lord of the Rings Online has their fall festival. They are going to be a little bit late this year and it will only start on October 27. But it will run until November 23 and since it is more focused on the autumn season itself, it doesn’t feel out of place. The part that just screams “Halloween” is the Haunted Burrow. It is so charmingly fitting to hobbits! I have certainly not done this every year, because there were years where I didn’t play the game at all despite always having the client installed. But I will definitely run through the Haunted Burrow again this year! FibroJedi has a great guide on what you can do during the Fall Festival.

I tried to remember the event in Rift, but I had to look it up and even then it didn’t ring a bell. I vaguely remember the fae ring, but I thought that was for entering the map for the spring event. Oh well. I do remember the minions from the halloween event, though. Minions aren’t really an event or even an activity per se. It’s just clicking on cards and clicking again a few hours later to get your rewards. When I look at this guide, I can remember that I did these quests! But to be honest, they are only “autumn” because of the colour of the leaves on the ground and because pumpkins are involved. Compared to Lotro and Guild Wars 2, it’s nothing that stands out.

Trove has Shadow’s Eve, and I don’t think I ever did anything during that time. But it apparently only runs for a week, so it may have always been the week that I didn’t play Trove. If there is another event like this this year, then I may take a look. I keep thinking of returning to Trove, but this usually lasts only a day and then I stop playing again because I feel that I have lost touch with the game. My club house is filled with antiquated crafting benches, for example.

I never really participated in the event in Elder Scrolls Online. I remember that I accepted the quest, but never finished it. I may take another look this year, because I can picture the ESO world working perfectly well with a spooky Halloween atmosphere! However, since I haven’t done much here, I can’t really say much about the event’s quality.

WoW’s event, Hallow’s End, was okay – back when I still played the halloween event. Where is it now? I actually have no idea. I remember when they added the Headless Horseman, back in 2008. Since I am actively playing WoW again – retail most of the time lately, I can take a look at what’s been added. WoW Classic will see its second Halloween event already! There isn’t anything that spectacular in WoW Classic. I really liked when they had added the Headless Horseman. Most of all, because I liked the Sinister Squashling pet that came with it! I think I’ll skip the one in WoW Classic this year.

Honorable mention: Wildstar’s Shade’s Eve. I loved the atmosphere here as well and really liked the blinking eyes in the darkness. In fact, it seems to be the only MMO that got a special blog post about its Halloween event from me. Even though Wildstar has such a comic-look, I think they created an amazing eerie atmosphere. Too bad the game isn’t there anymore.

I started this blog post by asking which MMO does Halloween best. I am not going to go into which one gives you the best loot or which is the hardest. For me, the best is the one with the most fitting atmosphere and where I have the most fun and enjoy the activities. With this in mind, it is actually a tie between Lotro’s Haunted Burrow and Guild Wars 2 with all activities taken together. Lotro finds this sweet balance between giving us Halloween and doing something that works really well in this world. And the first time I ran through it, I was definitely very carefully walking around, getting lost all the time and hoping there wouldn’t be any jump scares! Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, has a much bigger event, but I would also expect that from ArenaNet. They also found a really good way to implement Halloween into their lore, by adding the Mad King (back in Guild Wars originally). So, once the Halloween events come around, you know where you’ll find me!