By: Carmella Vitel & Elizabeth May
November 21, 2025
Graphic by Carmella Vitel and Elizabeth May
It's that time of year again, when that distant younger cousin you barely see gets the excuse to ask if you have games on your phone. Instead of saying no this year, offer up one of these six games.
ThanksTaking
Take revenge against families for eating your brethren in this second coming of ThanksKilling. Sow chaos during Thanksgiving night as you play as a turkey bent on ruining the day for as many as possible.
ThanksTaking was developed by Wishbone Games and released on August 25, 2022 on Steam and Windows. This silly game will test your stealth skills as you sneak through the house and hide from guard dogs trying to foil your plans.
This game has a reputation of being incredibly difficult. Will you dare to challenge your sanity this Thanksgiving and become the menacing turkey you were always meant to be?
South Park
A meteor strikes South Park and mutates the turkeys for “Operation: Turkey Butt”, the first mission of the game. It's up to the player to fight off waves of turkeys with snowballs and save the town.
South Park the video game was released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, and was developed by Iguana Entertainment Inc.
South Park the video game is as comedic as the show counterpart. This Thanksgiving indulge in chaos, grab a snowball, and take down the mother turkey.
Resident Evil 7
In Resident Evil 7, you play as the titular character Ethan Winters who is searching for his missing wife, Mia. Follow her trail to the Baker family’s estate and confront the horrors within.
Developed by Capcom and released January 2017 on Playstation, Xbox, Windows, and Steam, Resident Evil 7 redefined the horror genre and took the series back to its roots as a survival horror.
After deviating into more of an action series with previous installments, Resident Evil 7 delivers a truly terrifying experience that you would expect from this iconic franchise. How does this connect with Thanksgiving? Well, what’s more terrifying than having to deal with your extended family?
Stardew Valley
When your grandpa dies, he leaves you a farm. It's up to you to manage and grow your farm into a powerhouse, in this farming game.
Developed by ConcernedApe and released in February 2016, Stardew Valley is a singleplayer game available to play on Nintendo Switch, Steam, Mobile, PlayStation, Windows, and Xbox.
Stardew Valley’s fall season doesn’t have a Thanksgiving-themed festival, but it does have a fall fair where you display your best crops from the season. In a way that’s like Thanksgiving, one last harvest before winter and sharing those goods with others.
Sims 4
Everyone’s favorite life simulator! Sims 4 is a game where you can create a cast of residents, customize their appearance, and then play through their daily lives. All while preventing disaster along the way.
Sims 4 was developed by Maxis, a subdivision of EA, and released in September of 2014. You can play Sims 4 on Windows, Steam, Playstation, and Xbox.
You can celebrate Thanksgiving season within one of their many holiday packs. Within the wonderful world of Sims, Thanksgiving is the Harvest Festival. With so many Sims gathered in one room, who knows what chaos will ensue?
The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a game based on westward migration that has players leading a wagon party from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley. During this journey, they face hardships like lack of resources and deadly diseases.
The Oregon Trail is a text-based game from 1971 and developed by MECC. It’s singleplayer and available to play on older systems like the Nintendo 3DS and Atari.
The reason The Oregon Trail game was made was to teach people about westward expansion. It was released to a wider audience over Thanksgiving weekend in 1974, linking the game to Thanksgiving.
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This Thanksgiving, enjoy something more than Grandma’s cooking and play a game- or two. Happy Thanksgiving!