Mick Fraser

6 days ago | lootlevelchill.com | Mick Fraser

In these modern, often tumultuous, times so much of our lives are spent looking for catharsis. Not necessarily a way to escape the world, but a way to block it out and vent whatever new or existing stresses are currently eating us alive. We want to feel the thrill of abandon, maybe the exhilaration of letting go and taking risks, or more often the simple, primal joy that comes of just breaking stuff. Any stuff. All the stuff.

6 days ago | lootlevelchill.com | Mick Fraser

You could never accuse Paradox Interactive of not putting the work in. It’s an outfit famous for creating dense, complex strategy games, and whether you’re establishing a rich, thriving kingdom in Crusader Kings III or a sprawling empire in the stars in Stellaris, you always know you’re going to be challenged and tested. But Europa Universalis V takes this concept to the next level. And then the next – and then, well, you get where this is going.

1 week ago | lootlevelchill.com | Mick Fraser

Empyreal is a single-player action-RPG that looks and feels for all the world like it was originally designed to be an MMO. From the sprawling hub where everything is spaced too far apart to be convenient for a single character, to the Wayfinder-style gameplay loop of jumping into themed dungeons for loot, a lot of Empyreal’s systems seem to exist in service of themselves. Little time is spent really giving anything context.

1 week ago | lootlevelchill.com | Mick Fraser

By now we’ve all played at least one Survivor-like, right. Made popular by Vampire Survivors but then built upon by countless titles since such as Deep Rock Survivor and Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors, the only requisite is that they have that word on the title. You know the word, and I’m not saying it again. Hordes of Hunger is a little different, though. While it’s definitely part of that genre, it doesn’t have the word in the title, which is the first way it differentiates itself.

1 week ago | lootlevelchill.com | Mick Fraser

The games industry rumour mill being what it is, most of us weren’t completely blindsided by the announcement of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, though we were quite surprised when the full game dropped on the day it was announced. And straight onto Game Pass, no less. For many people, Skyrim served as the entry point into the Elder Scrolls series (unsurprisingly, considering it’s been ported to anything with a control method), but a lot of us remember further back.