FICSMAS in Satisfactory: The Seasonal Event Explained

FICS⁎MAS is Satisfactory’s holiday event, and it is unlike anything else in the game: time-limited, partly gated by real-world dates, and entirely optional.

When it runs

1 December to 18 January, every year since 2020. The dates have not moved across any season.

What changes between seasons is modest — a new calendar each year, and occasional polish. The 2024 season shrank the Giant FICSMAS Gifts and reworked the calendar; the 2025 season brought a new calendar and optimisation work. It is the same event with fresh trimmings rather than new content each December.

What it adds

Giant FICSMAS Gifts fall from the sky and have to be destroyed for materials. They are the event’s main resource source, and they are also the thing most likely to irritate you if you are trying to build.

A FICSMAS Advent Calendar with a reward each day, including Data Cartridges and Boombox Tapes on specific days.

A MAM research tree — the FICSMAS Holiday Event chain — which is how you progress through the event.

Decorations, buildings, Customizer skins and equipment, including hats for Lizard Doggos. The HUB itself gets decorated.

Northern Lights in the sky, which are purely visual.

None of it affects production. FICSMAS items exist in their own economy and do not feed any normal chain.

The research chain is gated by the calendar

This is the mechanic worth understanding before you commit to finishing the event.

Progression runs through a MAM research tree, and that tree needs items from the Advent Calendar. Since the calendar releases one reward per day, several research steps are gated behind real-world dates.

You cannot rush it. A step requiring an item given on Day 18 is not available on Day 3, no matter how much you have stockpiled of everything else.

The practical consequence: if you want to complete the event, log in regularly through December rather than attempting it in one session in January. Missing days costs you calendar rewards, and those rewards gate the chain.

Turning it off

The option exists and it is easy to miss, because it is only available on the title screen — not in the in-game options menu.

Options → Gameplay → Disable Seasonal Events, from the main menu before loading a save.

Two details:

In multiplayer, the host’s setting applies to everyone. A guest cannot disable it for themselves in someone else’s session.

Disabling is a legitimate choice. If you are mid-project and do not want gifts raining on your factory, the developers built the switch deliberately, and ADA has an entire bit about it.

Does it affect achievements?

The Disable Seasonal Events option is an ordinary gameplay setting, not a Creative Mode setting, so toggling it does not disable achievements.

Worth restating the general rule since it comes up here: only Creative Mode disables achievements. Mods, save editors, Game Modes settings and this toggle all leave them intact.

FICSMAS items are excluded from our data

A note about this site rather than the game.

Our database, comparator and recipe tools exclude FICSMAS items and recipes by default. This is deliberate: they are seasonal, they do not participate in normal production chains, and including them would clutter every recipe list with entries most people cannot use for ten months of the year.

If you are looking up a FICSMAS item specifically, the community wiki’s FICSMAS page is the right reference. Our tools are built for the year-round game.

Should you engage with it?

If you are new, the event is a pleasant distraction and the decorations are genuinely charming. It costs you nothing to pick up gifts as they fall.

If you are mid-project, the gifts falling on your build site are a real interruption and the disable switch exists for exactly this.

If you want the full research chain, plan for it: log in through December, because the date gating means it cannot be compressed.

If you are chasing achievements, there are event-specific ones, and they carry the same date constraints. That is worth knowing in November rather than in mid-January.

Dealing with the gifts

Giant FICSMAS Gifts fall across the map and need destroying to yield their contents. Two things make that less disruptive.

They can be shot. The Rebar Gun handles them at range, which is considerably less tedious than melee and means you can clear them without stopping what you are doing.

Foundations do not stop them. They land wherever they land, including inside a factory you are mid-way through building. If that is going to bother you, the disable switch is the answer rather than a construction workaround.

The Totally Normal Gift is a separate, permanent structure you build that produces gifts on its own — useful if you want event materials without waiting for the sky to deliver them.

Event materials do not convert

Worth stating because people ask: FICSMAS materials feed only FICSMAS recipes. There is no path from candy canes into your steel chain, and no reason to stockpile them beyond what the event itself consumes.

That isolation is why our tools exclude them. It also means the event costs you nothing strategically — engaging with it does not divert resources from your factory, and skipping it does not leave you behind.

Planning around it

If you play through December every year, the pattern that works:

Decide early whether you are doing the research chain. It needs regular logins because of the date gating, and deciding in January is deciding not to.

Turn it off during heavy build phases, on from the title screen when you want the decorations. The switch is not one-way.

Treat the decorations as the point. The Customizer skins and buildings persist after the event ends, so a factory decorated in December stays decorated. That is the lasting part; the gifts are the mechanic.

Common mistakes

Looking for the disable option in game. It is on the title screen only.

Expecting to complete the research chain in a weekend. Several steps need calendar items released on specific days.

Assuming a guest can disable it in someone else’s session. The host’s configuration applies.

Worrying it will affect achievements. It will not; only Creative Mode does that.

Looking for FICSMAS items in our database. They are excluded on purpose; the community wiki covers them properly.