Events

Hosted by the crow Pugna and his assistant Corvus Goodfeather, the Midsummer Cawnival turns the harsh summer into a carnival of mini-games, prize tokens and amusement rides. It's the lightest event on the calendar — purely cosmetic, purely fun, and a cheerful thing to do under the blazing sun.

How it works

The event revolves around the Cawnival Tree, which spawns Cawnival Saplings that produce the event's resources. Build carnival game structures around the tree, play them to earn Prize Tickets, and spend those tickets at the Prize Booth for exclusive rewards. The whole event is buildable through kits — you set up the carnival wherever you like.

Carnival games

• Eggs in a Basket — a timing-based tossing game
• Hubbub for Grub — a food-themed carnival classic
• Egg Scramble — quick-reflex gathering
• Nest Defender — protect the nest from intruders
• Cuckoo Spinwheel — a spinwheel-style game of chance
• Birdhouse Ball Drop — aim-and-drop precision
• Mini-Golf — available in Beginner, Standard, Expert, and Custom kit variants

Each game can be built as a structure or deployed from a portable kit, so you can set up a full carnival at your base or take a single game on the road.

Prize Booth rewards

Prize Tickets buy Cawnival Tokens (the event's currency), Mystery Boxes (Green, Yellow and Red varieties), and themed cosmetics including the Chirpy apparel set (Scarf, Cloak, Capelet). Utility items include Seed Clusters and Corny Slush. Decorative prizes let you keep the carnival spirit alive year-round: Miniature Tree, Light Catcher, Midsummer Night Light, and scale-model amusement rides — Mini Ferris Wheel, Mini Swing Carousel, Mini Pendulum Ride, Mini Tower Drop, Mini Spinning Eggcups, and Mini Rollercoaster.

Atmosphere

Confetti Cannons, Glitter Cannons and Streamer Cannons let everyone celebrate between rounds. The event usually runs from mid-June through July and serves as DST's summer counterpart to Winter's Feast — bright, celebratory, and refreshingly low-stakes.

The spookiest event on the DST calendar. Hallowed Nights brings trick-or-treating, pumpkin carving, a Mad Scientist Lab for brewing strange experiments, and a menagerie of creepy trinkets to trade with the Pig King. It leans fully into Don't Starve's gothic horror roots.

When it runs

Typically kicks off in late October (around the 18th–30th) and runs through November or early December. The 2025 iteration ran October 27 to December 18.

World changes

• Pumpkins and Pumpkin Lanterns spawn naturally in the world
• Special set pieces appear across the map
• Digging graves or tracking Suspicious Dirt Piles can trigger 3 Batilisks to attack
• Chopping trees has a small chance to release Totally Normal Bats (Spooks) that drain 10 sanity and interrupt your work

Mad Science

The Mad Scientist Lab is the event's crafting station. Inside it you can brew a series of bizarre Experiments: Phobic, Sanguine, Psychosis, Sulfuric, Arboretum and Lunar. Each produces unique items and effects — part decoration, part mechanic, all weird.

Candy & costumes

Fourteen types of Halloween Candies appear, from Candy Apples and Candy Corn to Gummy Spiders, Ghost Pops and Tentacle Lollis. A Candy Bag stores your haul. Pumpkin carving your haul. Pumpkin carving tools (Scooper, Knife, Saw) let you craft Faceless Pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns. The Pig King happily trades Halloween Trinkets for Gold Nuggets and Candies — bring extra inventory slots, because pigs will try to eat dropped candy.

Halloween Trinkets

Fifteen collectible trinkets, including the Broken Stake, Monkey Paw, Spider Ring and more. Several reference Klei's other games (Griftlands, Hot Lava, Oxygen Not Included), and the Monkey Paw nods to the classic horror short story.

Winter's Feast is the cosy centrepiece of DST's event calendar. A festive tree, a groaning table of holiday foods, gift-wrapping, snowmen, and the warm glow of community — all set against the harshest season in The Constant. It debuted in December 2016 as the second event added to DST.

When it runs

Starts in early-to-mid December and runs through mid-January to early February. The 2025 iteration ran December 18 to February 12.

The Feast Tree

The Winter's Feast Tree is the centrepiece. Grown from a Festive Tree Planter, it can be decorated with ornaments — Festive Baubles, Magnificent Adornments, Sentimental Adornments, Champion Adornments, Appeasing Adornments, and Festive Lights. Each ornament changes the tree's appearance and affects the gifts it produces.

Gifts & the surprise trap

Gift Wrap lets you craft presents for your teammates. Watch out for the Winter's Feast Surprise — a decorated tree with gifts that spawns in the world, but when you try to pick them up, the tree reveals itself as a Treeguard and hounds burst from the gifts.

Feast cooking

Eighteen exclusive Feast dishes unlock through a dedicated cooking filter, including Merry Berrysauce, Bibingka, Cabbage Rolls, Latkes, Lutefisk, Mulled Punch, Panettone, Pavlova, Roasted Turkey, Stuffing, Tamales, and Tourtière. Nine Winter Foods add to the holiday spread: Gingerbread Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Candy Canes, Eternal Fruitcake, Chocolate Log Cake, Plum Pudding, Apple Cider, Hot Cocoa, and Heavenly Eggnog. A Masonry Oven handles the event's special baking.

Boss changes

• Klaus — his Loot Stash appears year-round during the event, and both he and his Gem Deer get festive skins
• Deerclops — gains a unique skin and a new laser attack, making the fight significantly harder
• Bearger, Moose/Goose, Moslings, Dragonfly — receive cosmetic winter skins with no behaviour changes

Decorations & rewards

Buildable Snowmen, the Winter's Feast Table, and the Masonry Oven let you turn your base into a winter village. Past log-in rewards have included the Winter's Feast Lantern skin (2018, 2020) and the Ice Fishing Rod skin (2019).

Each Lunar New Year, Don't Starve Together celebrates the Chinese zodiac with a themed event that runs from late January through March. The format rotates annually — a new animal, a new shrine, a new mini-game, and a fresh set of decorations and rewards.

The series began in 2017 with Year of the Gobbler (celebrating the Year of the Rooster) and has run every year since. Each event adds a themed Shrine (Gobbler, Varg, Pig King, Carrat, Beefalo, Catcoon, Bunnyman, Dragonfly, Depths Worm, Clockwork Knight), an exclusive mini-game, and the recurring Offerings crafting filter with Lucky Gold Nuggets, Red Pouches, lanterns, firecrackers, and the Lucky Beast costume pieces.

Beyond the named festivals, Klei runs a rotating calendar of shorter limited-time events tied to real-world holidays and Don't Starve Together anniversaries. These pop-up events bring back exclusive cosmetics, special recipes and themed world tweaks for a brief window. The best way to catch them is to keep an eye on Klei's official announcements or launch the game during major holiday windows.