Spooks, ghouls and horror movies in TV make the vanguard of the onrushing Halloween holiday for the mass media. Often it’s a lot of build up to a final climax of costume parties and walking the streets dressed as Elsa from Frozen or trying to make a “I’m in the shower,” costume work without being awkward. For massively multiplayer online (MMO) game players, Halloween is not much different–spooks, ghouls and costumes appear but often in a flavor that fits the world they play in.

Halloween is past and many of the events happening online now have ended, so let’s take a quick look back at how the major MMOs handled the holiday. And, if you’re lucky, one or two might still be happening.

ArenaNet’s Halloween content, “The Shadow of the Mad King,” brings out all the spooks.

Guild Wars 2: The Shadow of the Mad King

It’s been three years since the launch of Guild Wars 2 and each year a Halloween event has surfaced involving an ancient murderous king named Mad King Thorn. He takes on the aspect of a well-dressed skeleton with a flaming jack o’lantern for a head who cackles and tells bad jokes to the residents of Tyria (the setting of GW2). This year the event is known as The Shadow of the Mad King.

During the event numerous elements of the celebration of Halloween in the United States become readily apparent: costumes, witches, ghouls, strange noises, bats hanging from ropes–even the moon in the Tyrian sky takes on a ghastly affect known as the “Grinning Mad Moon.”

Most especially the land becomes littered with giant candy corn, which it is told keeps the Bloody Prince away. According to legend, the Mad King locked his son, Edrick Thorn (his abusive dad calls him “Eddy”), in a box with only candy corn to eat–the boy eventually starved to death and now in his undeath has a powerful distaste for the candy.

Like most MMO developers, ArenaNet, LLC takes Halloween as a time to sell things to players, especially costumes. This year players were able to purchase a Mad King outfit (replete with flaming pumpkin head). There is also a Bloody Prince Thorn outfit that includes blood-red regalia and face paint reminiscent of the Joker from The Dark Knight movie in 2008. A huge bat winged backpack also went on sale, allowing players to stride around trailed by a huge chiropteran mantle.

In a fashion true to many MMOs, the Halloween event’s currency-of-choice is candy corn, which can be used to buy many of the items earned by playing the game; however, much of what’s listed above is premium store content and costs money to purchase.

World of Warcraft brings out the Headless Horseman during Hallow’s End. I want his horse (so bad).

World of Warcraft: Hallow’s End

Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft has been a cultural juggernaut for years now and in part has almost set the yardstick for the Halloween event. Each year starting around October 18th and ending near November 1st, the land of Azeroth gets an interesting visitor: The Headless Horseman.

The name of the celebration is called Hallow’s End and it’s a celebration by the Forsaken, an already undead race in WoW, remembering how they broke away from slavery to the Scourge. Of course, every other race across Azeroth also celebrates this spooky holiday (although one could argue it has special significance to the already-undead).

The WoW Halloween event has been going on many, many years (since 2005!) as a result it has built up quite a significance to the population of WoW, is included in many of the achievements, and keeps getting more streamlined. For WoW players this was the season of Hallow’s End.

As is in proper keeping with World of Warcraft, Hallow’s End provides a number of armor items that have fun cosmetic effects as well as powerful attributes for taking the fight to the bad guys. The Headless Horseman had his own instance in the Scarlet Monastery graveyard where players could enter and fight him for loot. The fight is an amusing romp that involves first knocking him down, and then dealing with his wayward jack o’lantern head.

Players who participated found themselves in possession of a lot of interesting loot including the Headless Horseman’s “head,” and potentially a pretty nifty sword–of course, what everyone really wants is the Horseman’s flying horse with green fire on its hooves.

Warframe brought out the Dia de Los Muertos aesthetic for this Halloween.

Warframe: A Halloween Alert

Digital Extremes, Inc. took to Halloween this year with an interesting twist. The game of Warframe is a massively multiplayer third-person shooter that markets itself as a “space ninja” game and for Halloween the developer released a spooky mission that asked players to go unarmed against the Infested–a terrible, already creepy enemy in the game made of virus infected flesh and technology.

Loot containers became jack o’lanterns and the foes gained extra horrible aesthetics: for example, the Ancients, shambling mountains of flesh with long dangling arms, were given rattling metal and chainsaw arms that would lash out at unarmed players. To add to the atmosphere of horror, players had to fight one of the most terrible foes in the game, an Infested Juggernaut, while unarmed. The key to defeating it involved knocking over stacks of jack o’lanterns to light it on fire.

Players could also purchase a flaming jack o’lantern helmet piece from the online store for extremely cheap (1 credit of in game freemium currency).

In honor of Dia de Los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead beginning October 31 and ending November 2, Digital Extreme’s released skins for player’s avatars and spaceships with stylized skulls and filigree. The developer also released skins for various guns that gives them either a skeletal or Mexican Day of the Dead look. These skins, of course, cost premium currency meaning sending the developer money.

Decorate your abode with skulls and green glow for Wildstar’s Shade’s Eve Halloween event!

Wildstar: Shade’s Eve

Wildstar, a science fiction MMO published by NCSoft Corp. and Carbine Studios, Inc., this year put on a Halloween event the hearkens right to the wearing of masks on the spooky holiday called Shade’s Eve.

“Jack Shade’s comin’ / Sure as death,” reads an ancient Cassian verse. “To lay you down / And steal your breath / Put on your mask / Hide with care / And pray the Angel / Finds you there

Salvation’s near / We’ll carry on / But first survive / Until the dawn!”

In the game, the story of Shade’s Eve involves a legend that rose out of a colony struck by a ghoulish space-plague that was put down by a single immune child (whose immunity led to a vaccine that saved the settlers). As all stories go, the characters morphed and the virus was anthropomorphised into Shade–a towering ghastly figure with skeletal hands.

During Shade’s Eve all the capital cities also took on decorative effects such as cobwebs, costumed vendors, jack o’lanterns and green foxfire.

For anyone who isn’t aware, Wildstar is well known for its substantial housing system. So much so that people would sometimes go on raids (large dungeoneering expeditions with 20 or more of their close friends) just to get a new lamp or end table to put in their house. Shade’s Eve is no exception to this aesthetic and Carbine is offering numerous decorations for houses from grinning jack o’lanterns to door wreaths made of glow-in-the-dark tubing.

Even Vulcan’s search for immortality in Star Trek Online’s “Hearts and Minds” psychological horror episode.

Star Trek Online: Hearts and Minds

Cryptic Studios, Inc. runs Star Trek Online and as it turns out in the future, the United Federation of Planets, doesn’t really celebrate Halloween any more… In fact, as the only huge Star Trek title in the MMO market the lack of Halloween content has always felt like a loss. However, that’s not to say that STO does nothing for Halloween.

On Halloween (and any Friday the Thirteenth during the year) a special episode unlocks called “Hearts and Minds.” Unlike most Halloween content in MMOs, “Hearts and Minds” is not a spooky or scary story–instead it’s a very Star Trek styled philosophical conundrum involving a dying vulcan who is looking for a cure for his illness. Without too many spoilers, it’s worth it to say that his experiments fall a little bit on the wrong side of morality and the story asks players to question the role of humanity and sentience.

As for horror themes in Star Trek Online, players who are looking for a good fright might want to re-play an old episode for Halloween called “What Lies Beneath.” Possibly the best horror episode in any MMO and it’s in STO.

In this episode, players are asked to investigate the lower levels of Drozana station–an old, decrepit Federation starbase–as part of the meta-plot. Of course, this leads players into the dungeon-like underbelly of the station where they must use their flashlights to see. During the excursion they get accosted by space spiders and a seemingly ghostly apparition who taunts them with psychotic babbling.

Featured image credit: ArenaNet, LLC. Guild Wars 2 “Shadow of the Mad King” wallpaper.