Dear Developers: I Want First-Person Shooters with Holiday Themed Maps

My wife and I are currently enjoying the Halloween event taking place in Guild Wars 2. The beauty of the Halloween themed scenery in Lions Arch is breathtaking to say the least. As I have been playing through the event I have been wondering why don't developers incorporate more holiday themes in first-person shooters like MMOs and other genres?

To give you a better idea as to why I believe holiday themes would be great for FPSs, the aesthetics in Guild Wars 2 had me recalling one of my most favorite holiday themes in a game: The Winter Crash map in the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This map was created only for the PC in which the map Crash was given a Christmas makeover that included holiday lights, a Christmas tree, as well as Santa reigning down carnage on enemies below (I can still hear him shouting "Ho-ho-ho" as the bombs exploded). Last Christmas I actually reinstalled CoD:MW just to play this map once again. And what caught my attention was how much I enjoyed playing through the holiday themed map in spite of the age of CoD:MW. Playing a Christmas themed map during the holiday season really added to my enjoyment of playing an FPS, more so than just playing on a standard map. Therefore, why not follow the tradition set by MMOs and Winter Crash, and create holiday maps for FPSs?

Wouldn't you love to see holiday maps in FPS? Can you imagine if Black Ops II included a map like Winter Crash or Battlefield 3 taking an existing map and adding a holiday theme to it? Wouldn't it be fun to be in a firefight in Santa's Village or in a Halloween themed haunted house? For me this would be an exciting facet to the FPS genre.

The only argument against such an idea is that if developers were to create a holiday theme map, it would only feel relevant during that particular holiday. In other words, you are not going to want to play a Christmas themed map in May. And since games like CoD are rebooted annually like sports franchises such as Madden or FIFA, it wouldn't be a good use of resources to create such a map. Thus, why spend money creating a map in which players would play for a short while and then shelve.

However, I believe having holiday themed maps would be a great way to enjoy an FPS, and besides they can always make it DLC to cover costs. If Team Fortress 2 is able to have Halloween themed maps annually, then why can't games like CoD, BF3, MoH, Halo or any of the other popular FPS games include at least one map that makes you feel the sense of a season. I know I'd return to play on the maps even if the game is over 5 years old.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Now I'm off to Guild Wars take on the Mad King once more!