Christmas cooking in video games: festive stress with baked in fun

This Christmas, anyone trying to prepare a turkey dinner for their extended family should know that, according to a recent survey, cooking a festive spread is one of the main causes of holiday stress.

Virtual caterers know what it means to feel the heat too. In restaurant management game and kitchen sim Overcooked (2016), the stirring and serving can build to such dizzying speeds that they feel more like a shooter than a culinary experience. 

Alongside the official Halo and Witcher cookbooks – the latter of which recommends the unusual-sounding elf and onion soup – food preparation in games is a mixed bag, and has been for decades. Data East’s BurgerTime (1982) saw chef Peter Pepper climb ladders to activate burger ingredients: buns, patties, lettuce. He also had to stop the dastardly Mr Pickle and Mr Hotdog from sabotaging his mission by shooting at them with a pepper-filled blunderbuss.

Across the Iron Curtain, Hase und Wolf (1985) from VEB Polytechnik borrowed from Namco’s Pac-Man (1980) and Soviet cartoon series Well, Just You Wait (1969) to create a healthier copy of the pill-popping maze runner. Distributed not among capitalist arcades but throughout community centres, Hase tasked players with a guiding a rabbit around the screen devouring vegetables while avoiding a hungry wolf. The game should strike a chord with anyone facing down a double helping of sprouts.

The Eastern bloc might have foreseen the rise of whole-food plant-based diets, but Dreamworks’ Someone’s in the Kitchen (1996) inadvertently anticipated smart appliances via its depiction of talking kitchenware. To beat the game you need to take orders from a talking toaster, correctly grease the hob and very carefully adjust your heat settings – and that’s just to prepare Eggs Benedict.

It might not sound as mouth-watering, but maths software Reader Rabbit (1996) from The Learning Company achieved another interactive first: demonstrating fractions via pizza slices. The game also offered pudding-preparation challenges to be completed by adding and subtracting cups of sugar, and cats who are addicted to fast food. The rabbit of the title, luckily, doesn’t end up as Dutch Christmas dish Hasenpfeffer.

As games and consoles became more powerful, a title was released to rival a George Foreman Grill for its versatility. SuperVillain’s Order Up! (2008) is an RPG that sees would-be chefs learn the basics via fast food – and then enter the Fortified Chef competition after purchasing a diner. Trying to impress the game’s food critic is as tricky as correctly timing your real world Christmas gravy. 

There are more vital nutritional challenges in Klei’s survival sim Don’t Starve (2013), where players forage in a hand-drawn universe to avoid permanent death via starvation. Main character Wilson must chow down on cooked eel and handmade jam before it spoils, and must simultaneously keep a close eye on his health, hunger and sanity bars. It might be some of the darkest recipe-making to reach your screens this Christmas unless you’ve already sampled Cooking Price-Wise (1971), our recent release of the cult kitchen show fronted by horror icon Vincent Price.

Just as ghoulish but a lot more light-hearted is Dungeon Munchies (2019) from maJAJa, a side-scrolling RPG flavoured with both Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Castlevania (1986). Players control a zombie who unearths a necromancer in chef’s whites: one who orders you to gather fried mosquitos, slime jelly and other underworld ingredients if you wish to gain your superpowers.

For action fans, sourcing food can sometimes feel like a drag between missions. But just as Naked Snake of Konami’s Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (2004) has to catch and eat pythons before his stamina gauge drops, the grizzled Kratos from God of War: Ragnarök (2022) gets to pause between killings to track down a cookbook in the game’s Land of the Nine area. By following its clues and gathering Prongfruit, Bantam Melon and other strange-sounding ingredients he’s rewarded with a stat-boosting Meal of Comfort.

For a cheerier hunter-gatherer experience, foodies can dip into Mintrocket’s Dave the Diver (2023) and enjoy equal parts customer service and underwater exploration. The object of the game is to plunge into deep sea spot the Blue Hole and retrieve fresh ingredients to supply a sushi restaurant. Anyone who’s tried to harpoon one of Dave’s bombproof Aberration fish will appreciate the comparative ease of cooking off-screen, where pitfalls of that stressful Christmas dinner – for example, running out of brandy butter the night before – can be fixed via a quick dash to the corner shop.

And if the unthinkable happens and your meal is incinerated without any medicinal festive spirits to dull the pain: Auroch’s Brewmaster (2022) offers a pick-me-up in the form of a beer production simulator. Would-be brewers can follow set missions collecting malts, grains and hops, or go sandbox and mix as many ingredients in as large a quantity as they like. The latter may be the wiser option to anyone hosting a houseful of in-laws, because unlike in the game, real life doesn’t come with a time-skip button. Merry Christmas.