September 18 is here, and with it comes The Grinch 2: Saving Christmas, the game Outright Games and Dr. Seuss Enterprises have had us waiting on for a while now. ComingSoon has the launch details, and the timing is no accident. This lands ahead of the Jim Carrey movie sequel, so we're in full Grinch season whether you're ready or not.

For those keeping score at home, the "2" on the box follows 2023's The Grinch: Christmas Adventures, the previous holiday outing from the same publishing lane. Outright Games, for the unfamiliar, specializes in licensed family games, the kind of stuff that ends up wrapped and sitting under a tree. I'm not going to grade a catalog I haven't played end to end, but that's the space they live in and the Grinch fits it naturally.

Details on Saving Christmas have been thin, which is standard for family games. What we know: it's out today across consoles, arriving ahead of the movie sequel that brings Carrey back to Mount Crumpit. My read, and it's just my read, is the timing catches the same holiday wave the movie will make. The 2000 film turned the Grinch into a perennial, and every November the whole machine spins back up. A game on shelves when parents actually do their Christmas shopping sells itself. September launch day is for the rest of us.

I've said before on this site that licensed games live or die on whether the people making them understood the property, and the Grinch is trickier than he looks. The whole point of the character is a grump whose heart grows three sizes. Get that arc wrong and you've just got a green guy collecting coins. Get it right and even a mid-budget family game can land an emotional beat that sticks. The good ones usually do. Plenty of AAA studios never figured that out.

Nina would tell you I'm a sucker for any game my nieces and nephews can play when they visit over the holidays, and she wouldn't be wrong. Last winter it was whatever lego thing was on the shelf. This year it might be a certain resident of Whoville.

If you've got young Whos in your life, this is one to watch ahead of the movie. And if you've got opinions on whether a Grinch game can hold an adult's attention for more than an evening, I'm listening. No judgment either way. Some of us have priorities.