The 10 best video games to buy your kid for Christmas 2026

Image: Nintendo

Mario Kart World

Switch 2 · Rated E · $109.99

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9/9 reindeer. Full team, Rudolph leading. Nothing on this list makes more kids happy at once.

The safest bet on this list, and it isn't close. Nintendo has sold over 15 million copies, roughly three times its next-best Switch 2 game. The reason is simple: a four-year-old and a fourteen-year-old can race in the same room and both have fun. One parent who reviewed Switch 2 games with four kids of different ages called it the one game all of them went straight for. If your kid is getting a Switch 2 this year, the Mario Kart World bundle ($749.99, out late September) saves you about $50 over buying the pieces separately.

Best for: the whole family, every age

Image: The Pokémon Company / Nintendo

Pokémon Pokopia

Switch 2 · Rated E

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9/9 reindeer. Full team. The only game that scored on every chart Santa checked.

The surprise hit of 2026. It's a Pokémon game where you build habitats and a little town instead of battling, which sounds odd until you watch a kid lose an entire Saturday to it. It launched in March, cracked 5 million sales by mid-August, and it's the only kids' game sitting in the U.S. year-to-date top ten alongside the big-budget grown-up releases. Reviewers called it cozy and hard to put down, and a second expansion is due later this year, so there's more coming after Christmas too.

Best for: ages 6 and up, builders and collectors, calm players

Image: Mojang Studios / Xbox

Minecraft Dungeons II

Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, PC · Rated E10+ · about $30 US

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8/9 reindeer. Runs on every sleigh in the house. Loses one reindeer for being too new to judge.

The one pick that runs on basically any machine in the house, including an older original Switch. It comes out September 29, so there are no sales numbers yet. It's here because Minecraft is still what kids ask for most, and because up to four players can team up on the same couch. That's the "siblings stop fighting over the controller" feature, and it's rarer than it should be. Heads up: playing online with friends on a console needs that console's paid online subscription.

Best for: ages 10 and up, Minecraft kids, siblings who play together

Image: Warner Bros. Games

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch 2 · Rated E10+

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8/9 reindeer. Cool enough for big kids, gentle enough for Santa's conscience.

The best-selling kid-friendly game of the year on PlayStation and Xbox, sitting at #8 on the U.S. year-to-date chart. It borrows the satisfying combat from the grown-up Batman games and wraps it in LEGO's slapstick humour, so it feels "cool" to a ten-year-old without being too dark for one. The Switch 2 version arrived September 18, so it's now on every current machine.

Best for: ages 8 to 12, superhero fans, kids "too old" for Mario

Image: Nintendo

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream

Switch (also plays on Switch 2) · Rated E

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8/9 reindeer. Bonus points for working on the old Switch. Minus one for fart jokes (Santa laughed anyway).

You make little characters (your family, your teacher, the dog), drop them on an island, and watch them make friends, fall out and get into ridiculous situations. It's #7 for the year in the U.S. and was still in the top ten this summer, months after launch. It's also the budget pick: it runs on the original Switch and the Switch Lite, so no new console required. The rating mentions some cartoon bathroom humour, which, if you have an eight-year-old, is a feature.

Best for: ages 7 and up, creative kids, households with an older Switch

Image: Nintendo

Splatoon Raiders

Switch 2 · Rated E10+

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7/9 reindeer. Fans love it; Santa's waiting for the hype to settle.

This is where the gaming community weighed in hardest. When it came out in July, player scores briefly ranked it among the ten highest user-rated games of all time on Metacritic. That was fans being fans and it'll settle, but critics liked it too (low 80s). It's a paint-shooting action game with short missions, which is great for a kid who only gets 30 minutes on a school night. It was the #7 seller in the U.S. in July.

Best for: ages 10 and up, action fans, short play sessions

Image: Nintendo

Donkey Kong Bananza

Switch 2 · Rated E10+

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7/9 reindeer. Great game, but the in-game purchases made Santa check his list twice.

It's last year's game, but it's the second-best-selling Switch 2 game ever at almost 4.8 million copies, and still one of the best reasons to own the console. You can punch through almost anything in the world, which is exactly as satisfying as it sounds. If your kid already has a Switch 2 and Mario Kart, this is usually the next thing they ask for. The rating flags in-game purchases, so set up parental controls before you hand it over (more on that below).

Best for: ages 8 and up, kids who like to break things (in the game, hopefully)

Image: Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios

Forza Horizon 6

Xbox, PC (PS5 version due later in 2026) · Rated E

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7/9 reindeer. Fantastic, but a family laptop probably can't pull this sleigh.

The top-selling kid-safe game on Xbox and PC this year, #6 on the U.S. year-to-date chart. It's an open-world driving game set in Japan: no violence, just hundreds of real cars and a huge map to explore. Parent reviewers point out that few racing games give kids this much freedom, and the driving assists mean a younger kid won't spend the whole time in a ditch. It has the heaviest PC requirements on this list, so check the hardware section before buying it for a laptop.

Best for: car-crazy kids of any age, Xbox and PC households

Image: Electronic Arts

NHL 27

PS5, Xbox · Rated E10+

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6/9 reindeer. Proper Canadian Christmas, but barely better than last year's.

The Canadian pick. The U.S. charts are full of baseball and American football games most kids around here don't care about, so I swapped in hockey. Honest take: Best Buy Canada's review scored it 3.6 out of 5 and called it a small step up from last year. Buy it if your kid skipped NHL 26. If they already have last year's, it's a closer call. It isn't on any Nintendo console.

Best for: ages 10 and up, hockey families, PlayStation and Xbox only

Image: Nintendo

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book

Switch 2 · Rated E

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8/9 reindeer. The best pick for the littlest elves.

The pick for the youngest gamers. It came out in May and reviewers loved the storybook art. The main complaint from grown-up critics was that it's too easy, which is exactly why it's here: a five-year-old can play it without an older sibling grabbing the controller every two minutes. One parent reviewer described it as more like an interactive nature journal than a race to the finish.

Best for: ages 4 to 7, first-time gamers

The one they'll ask for that isn't on this list: Grand Theft Auto VI

PS5, Xbox · November 19 · Not a kids' game

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0/9 reindeer. One lump of coal. Not because it's a bad game. Because it's a grown-up one.

GTA VI launches November 19 and it's almost certainly going to be the biggest-selling game of the year, so every kid in your child's class will be talking about it. Every past Grand Theft Auto game has been rated M (Mature, 17+), and there's no reason to expect this one to be different. I'm not here to tell you how to run your house. I just want you to know what it is before it ends up under the tree because "everyone has it." If your kid wants that big, go-anywhere open world, Forza Horizon 6 (#8) and LEGO Batman (#4) scratch the same itch at an age-appropriate rating.

Bottom line: Check the rating on the box before you wrap it

Nintendo Switch 2: the default for kids

$679.99 · Mario Kart World bundle $749.99 · Plays 8 of 10

If you're buying one machine for a kid under 12, this is it. It plays eight of the ten games above, works on the TV or in the car, and it's where almost every family-friendly game is landing. The price went up $50 on September 1, so the bundles are the smart buy. One gotcha: the Switch 2 only takes the newer "microSD Express" memory cards. The regular microSD card from the old Switch or your camera won't work, so if you're buying extra storage as a stocking stuffer, look for the word "Express" on the package.

Minimum: the console itself. Nice to have: a microSD Express card and a second controller

Xbox Series S: the cheapest way in

$449.99 (512 GB) · $529.99 (1 TB) · Plays 4 of 10

The least expensive current console in Canada right now, by a lot. It runs Forza Horizon 6, NHL 27, LEGO Batman and Minecraft Dungeons II, and with a Game Pass subscription a kid gets a big rotating library without you buying games one at a time. The catch is storage: modern games are huge and the 512 GB model fills up fast, so spend the extra $80 on the 1 TB version if you can. The bigger Series X is $729.99 and plays the same games with better graphics, which most kids won't notice.

Minimum: Series S 512 GB. Better buy: Series S 1 TB

PlayStation 5: for older kids and teens

$749.99 (Digital) · $819.99 (disc) · Plays 4 of 10

Sony raised Canadian prices by about $170 in April, which makes this a tough sell for a young kid. It runs LEGO Batman, NHL 27 and Minecraft Dungeons II today, with Forza Horizon 6 coming later this year. Where it earns its price is with teenagers, since that's where most of the bigger T-rated games and their friends' online parties live. Skip the PS5 Pro ($1,099.99) as a gift. It's a graphics upgrade for enthusiasts, not something a kid will notice.

Minimum: PS5 Digital. Get the disc version only if you buy used games

A family PC or laptop: check before you buy

Plays 3 of 10 · Here's the floor

A PC runs Forza Horizon 6, LEGO Batman and Minecraft Dungeons II, but "we have a laptop" is not the same as "we have a gaming laptop." The minimum I'd accept is 16 GB of RAM, a solid-state drive (SSD), and a dedicated graphics card at least as good as an NVIDIA GTX 1650. That's exactly Forza Horizon 6's listed minimum. Minecraft Dungeons II is lighter and gets by on 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 1050. For comfortable play, Forza recommends an RTX 3060 Ti-class card with a Ryzen 5 5600X or Core i5-12400F. The thin-and-light laptop used for email almost certainly has no graphics card at all, and that's the #1 reason for "the game won't run" calls in January.

Minimum: 16 GB RAM + SSD + GTX 1650-class graphics