Microsoft's Minesweeper ugly Xmas sweater has already sold out

(Image credit: Microsoft)

It’s that time of year again and Microsoft released its annual themed ugly sweater for the Christmas season. In previous years, we’ve seen homages to Microsoft programs like Windows XP and the much beloved MS Paint.

Though it sold out pretty quickly once again, this year Microsoft featured Minesweeper in it’s ugly sweater efforts. For those who are too young, Minesweeper is a puzzle game included in some versions of windows. Players click squares and hope there aren’t any mines on it, or they right click them in the hopes that there are. Later they might learn that the numbers are there to help them figure this out. It might be embarrassingly later in life for some.

Microsoft minesweeper ugly sweater front — The front of the sweater features a minesweeper level shaped like an xmas tree. (Image credit: Microsoft)

This Minesweeper themed sweater has the traditional square grid from the game, shaped like a Christmas tree in the centre with a snow and mine filled motif around. The often judgemental, smiley in the top centre is wearing a red and white snowy hat to match and the scores at the top are 1990 and 2021. These are paying homage to the year Minesweeper released as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 1, and obviously also this year, the year the sweater was released.

Window shopping

(Image credit: Microsoft)

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While you can’t get one anymore, Microsoft’s seasonal ugly sweaters are also tied to some sort of charitable donation. This year, the company is giving $100,000 USD to AbleGamers, a wonderful charity that helps connect people with disabilities with more accessible ways to play games. They're absolutely worth checking out, ugly sweater or no.

Minesweeper ugly sweater back — (Image credit: Microsoft)

We also have a list of some other ugly gaming sweaters we would totally maybe wear that you can buy. For other things you can buy, some Cyber Monday deals are still ongoing and we’re still collecting the best ones for you here.

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here.

No, she’s not kidding.