The latest South Park video game takes us back to the land of wizards and warriors in South Park: Snow Day! Once again playing as the new kid, a deadly snowstorm has come across the chaotic town of South Park. With school out, for a few days Cartman, along with Butters enlists the new kid to help him conquer Stan, Kyle, and Kenny’s rival clans to rule the snowy playgrounds once more.

South Park: Snow Day is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Question LLC and published by THQ Nordic. It is available on PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers for South Park: Snow Day’s story and South Park lore, as well as more recent episodes.

South Park is back with a new action-adventure game.

It’s been seven years since we last got a major South Park game and while the previous two heavily emulated the style and presentation of the show, South Park: Snow Day has returned to the 3D realm like the first several games. You’re once again the New Kid (a custom-made character) playing with main leads Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny. Though Snow Day isn’t exactly a sequel to Stick of Truth or Fractured But Whole it does have some continuity with those two titles and the series itself. This time around the game takes on a bit of an action brawler with a card-battling system for buffs and additional attacks.

South Park: Snow Day! features a semi-open world map across five stages.

THE GOOD: The game opens with Eric dreading another school day and complaining about it to his mother who’s watching the news. During a weather report, it’s mentioned that a severe blizzard is on its way to South Park giving Eric hope for a snow day which is later confirmed. Eric dawns his wizard gear enlisting the New Kid, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Butters, and the other kids to play wizards and warriors. Cartman reintroduces the new kid to the game and pleads with him to follow the rules which had been an issue in previous games. After reviewing the rules of the latest version of the game Cartman gets the New Kid to help him attack their first target Kyle who runs the Elf kingdom. Following Kyle’s defeat he joins Cartman and the New Kid as per the rules.

Together, Cartman, Kyle, and the New Kid go after Stan and his Marshwalkers group. Stan acquires a powerful axe with unique abilities that make it harder for him to defeat. They later learn that Kenny is teaming up with Stan and Cartman gets the New Kid to beat him and join their army. Sometime later, Stan’s Uncle Jimbo uses the New Kid and the others to find miscellaneous items for him to barter during the storm in return for assisting them in reaching Stan. The New Kid faces off against a group of Sixth Graders who attempt to run them over in a snowplow defeating them and escaping. They eventually come to blows with Stan who enlists the help of Randy to fire cannons mid-battle against the New Kid and the others.

After defeating Stan the group argues over who went against the rules but ultimately agrees to keep playing. With the weather waning Cartman betrays everyone teaming up with Mr. Hankey who’s still angry over being canceled years ago and Stan & the other boys refusing to help him. Hankey had been using dark matter (which is just shit) asin-game magic currency to give the New Kid upgrades and spreading it across town to control the citizens of South Park. Not wanting to return to school Cartman reveals his betrayal and battles the others losing and rejoining. Hankey has the boys face the townspeople before fighting them in one last battle which they’re victorious. They eventually forgive Mr. Hankey and ask for one more snow day.

Snow Day retains some of the RPG elements of the last couple of games with a perk system and card upgrade system.

South Park: Snow Day takes a bit of a divide from the Ubisoft era of games opting instead to focus on a multiplayer PVE game. It has a semi-open map that lends players a small bit of exploration mainly for treasure such as more powerful cards and currency for upgrades. Upon completing a new area, you can acquire new cards and upgrade them by meeting with Jimmy at the cost of TP. Additionally, you can gain powerful card upgrades from meeting with Henrietta if you can find her nearby. When you collect enough dark matter you can increase your stats such as health and attack by speaking to Mr. Hankey. Combat is in the style of an action brawler with your choice of cards acting like power-ups and unique skills.

The story takes place sometime between seasons 22 and 27 with Mr. Hankey returning and being out for revenge. The game references many more recent episodes throughout the campaign. Admittedly, the timeline is rough to get down with no real reference point besides confirming it at least takes place sometime after season 22. The campaign acts as a mini-episode of the series with a small mission count of five that’s about twenty to thirty minutes to complete with the last two missions being a bit longer. There’s a surprising amount of difficulty fairly early in the game and at times it can be attributed to cheap deaths, but in others, the difficulty feels genuine when enemies gang up on you. You can play the game with up to three friends which is probably the best possible experience, however, the game does provide you with AI allies if you want to go it alone.

Snow Day’s biggest feature is the ability to play with friends.

THE BAD: The game is incredibly short having been completed in about fiveish hours if you want to complete everything. There’s a bit of unbalancing in difficulty where it feels like the AI was super cheating you, but then some of the later enemies like the end-game boss for example wind up being incredibly easy. If you haven’t been keeping up with the last five or so seasons a lot of the references will probably be lost on you including the storyline involving Mr. Hankey. Compared to the last couple of games Snow Day suffers from a lack of humor and dialogue likely attributed to its budget sticker price but it does have a bit of potential. It’s just a shame that there seems to be a lack of passion compared to the Ubisoft titles.

It would have been neat if the developers leaned into the minor RPG mechanics a bit more akin to the last few games with costumes acting more like armor and weaponry having more unique attributes. The card system is a neat idea, albeit a bit overdone these days, but it never feels fully realized especially towards the end game.

Take out enemies with long-range, short-range, and ability-based attacks.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: South Park: Snow Day is a valiant first effort to bring South Park back to the world of 3D animated games, but ultimately fails to live up to its premise with a limited budget which seemingly affected every ounce of the project. While the humor the series and many other gaming entries from within is known for is present in Snow Day it’s not nearly as smart or memorable. But, if you have a few hours to kill in an afternoon with friends South Park: Snow Day isn’t the worst way to chomp down a bit of an off day from work.