Top 10 Snow and Ice Levels in Video Games
Blame it on global warming or the wrath of the sun god, but it has been freakin’ hot this month. Looking at Wunderground (or as I like to call it, the Harbinger of Bad News) my little corner of the Pacific Northwest is supposed to hit 118 F (that’s like -2,300 Celsius or Kelvin or something, math and science have never been my strong suit) on Monday and stay in triple digits through, I don’t know, the end of eternity.
We all have our go-to ways of cooling off, whether it be cranking up the AC (screw the environment, daddy needs to be kept at a temperature of 65 degrees at all times), tossing a bag of ice in front of a fan, or tubing with an icy six-pack of generic beer in that refreshing, leech-infested stream that smells a little funny but is probably just fine. No doubt the best way to keep cool (at least that’s the premise of this article, so go with it) is to revisit those snowy, frigid levels in our favorite games. Here are a few of the best ones from recent years (you know, when snow actually started looking like snow)
10. Rise of the Tomb Raider
Snow, ice, bears, badgers, microtransactions…Lara Croft stares them all down in this incredibly well-rendered level that definitely pushed the snow-making graphics technology way back in the primitive days of 2016.
9. The Last of Us, Part 2
What’s a journey of painful self discovery without a trek through snow? Is the cold a metaphor for Ellie’s frozen heart? Who can forget this game play mechanic tutorial wrapped up in the guise of a snowball fight with some scrappy and adorable post-apocalyptic kids? Why so many questions?
8. Painted World of Ariandel (Dark Souls 3 DLC)
Nearly every one of From Software’s games include some sort of homage to winter, as Miyazaki is reportedly obsessed with both snow globes and the Nightmare Before Christmas. Replete with frost-breathing trees, hypothermia and giant wolves, this DLC is guaranteed to make your fingertips turn blue. Which is obviously why I dropped the controller hard against the wall.
7. (tie) God of War (remake) and Resident Evil Village
Weird to have a tie in a totally arbitrary, made-up ranking system, but what can you do? Recent entry Resident Evil Village opens in wintry Eastern Europe and the weather plays an important part in grounding what’s to come, as nothing is more terrifying than being in white-out conditions and not able to see the cut scenes that are coming. As for God of War, I mean, c’mon, this entire game is one big, snow-covered mountain, despite there being lots of environments that, um, aren’t. Right, boy?
6. Gears of War 5
You can be forgiven if you forgot that Gears 5 spent a significant amount of time in an extremely well-rendered snow and ice environment. But it did. A lot. Here’s proof.
Click on through to PAGE 2 for the top 5…