A big welcome back to all Loot Happens subscribers. Loot Happens is a weekly newsletter that is emailed and posted on LootHappens.com.
It's important to note that for premium subscribers, game offerings and in-game content, every week is different. Sometimes it's in-game codes, Steam keys, and giveaways, but premium members will always get something special every mailing. We also occasionally get mind-blowing early access or premium games that pay for an entire year's subscription.
Each newsletter is generally structured as Premium Loot > Free Sub Giveaways > Game Feature > Game discounts.
Key Giveaway for Premium Subscribers: Blade Jumper
Blade Jumper is built around a single, unforgiving idea: one jump, one slash, no hesitation. You scale the massive Kukuru Tower with a minimalist control scheme where movement and combat are bound to the same decisive leap. Miss your timing, and the climb turns cruel—sending you tumbling back through enemies and traps. As you ascend, a dystopian vision of Seoul ruled by artificial pleasure slowly reveals itself through scattered story fragments. Blade Jumper thrives on precision, momentum, and pressure, turning every successful climb into a hard-earned act of defiance.
Additional In-Game Giveaway for Premium Subscribers
Oily Beard is a slow-burn strategy sandbox built on risk, imagination, and the constant fear of losing everything. Beneath its browser-based surface lies a game of ruthless economics, fragile alliances, and long-term planning, where pouring resources into growth can make you powerful—or paint a target on your back. Politics matter as much as armies, with diplomacy, betrayal, and quiet deals shaping the battlefield as much as open war. What truly defines Oily Beard is its community: friendships forged under pressure, debts that can never quite be repaid, and moments where one decision—from sending aid to launching an attack—can echo for the rest of the game.
In-Game Code Giveaway for ALL Free Subscribers
Oily Beard is a slow-burning strategy game where imagination does most of the heavy lifting. Behind its simple, browser-based look sits a tense mix of economic gambles, fragile alliances, and the constant risk of losing everything overnight. Power isn’t just built through armies—timing, diplomacy, and trust matter just as much, often more. What lingers most is the human side: friendships tested under pressure, favors that can’t be repaid, and moments where a single act of loyalty or betrayal can change the course of an entire game.
Terra Invicta: The Last Check: Key Giveaway For Free Subscribers
Terra Invicta An extraterrestrial probe is detected approaching Earth, while—unknown to humanity—an alien force has already arrived in the icy reaches of the Kuiper Belt, mining a distant dwarf planet in preparation for invasion. As Earth’s nations fail to unite in response, transnational networks of like-minded political, military, and scientific leaders form covert channels to confront the threat, even as the aliens’ true motives remain uncertain and rival factions arise, driven by hope, fear, or greed.
You take control of one such faction: the Resistance, striving to unite nations in a coordinated defense; Humanity First, determined to exterminate the aliens and any who sympathize with them; the Servants, who worship the invaders as saviors; the Protectorate, which urges negotiated surrender to avoid annihilation; the Academy, seeking an interstellar alliance; the Initiative, intent on profiting from chaos; or Project Exodus, racing to build a starship and flee the Solar System altogether.
If you would like to be in the running for a key, hit reply and just put 'terra'. We will pick a winner and send over the key in 48 hours
Historically Low Prices
This section of Loot Happens tracks historical discounts on games and across the industry right now! Our tireless web crawlers scour the web daily, sniffing out the best deals across the gaming landscape.
These aren't just any games – they're titles we adore and highly respect. And right now, you can grab them at prices we've never seen before!
Featured Game Review: Code Violet
Some games collapse under ambition. Others falter because they mistake surface-level appeal for substance. Code Violet lands firmly in the latter camp, presenting itself as a pulpy blend of sci-fi horror, dinosaurs, and third-person action, yet rarely delivering on the tension or depth those elements promise. At a glance, its premise feels like a throwback to genre staples—isolated facilities, hostile creatures, a lone survivor fighting through the aftermath of catastrophe. But once the initial novelty fades, it becomes clear that Code Violet struggles to turn that setup into a compelling experience. What should feel like a desperate fight for survival instead unfolds as a rigid, technically uneven trek through uninspired spaces, weighed down by shallow combat and a story that never earns its dramatic turns.
A familiar story without a steady core
Narratively, Code Violet leans heavily on well-worn science fiction tropes: genetic experimentation, space colonization gone wrong, and secrets buried beneath layers of catastrophe. On paper, there’s enough here to spark curiosity, especially in scattered lore fragments and environmental details that hint at something more thoughtful beneath the chaos. Unfortunately, those ideas remain largely peripheral. The main storyline moves forward through stiff cutscenes and rushed revelations, escalating toward increasingly wild twists without taking the time to ground them emotionally or logically.
That lack of grounding is especially apparent in its protagonist. Violet is positioned as a capable survivor, but she rarely feels like an active participant in the story unfolding around her. Her motivations are thin, her reactions underdeveloped, and her internal perspective almost entirely absent. As a result, dramatic moments pass without impact, and relationships with other characters never progress beyond surface-level concern. Instead of building tension through character and consequence, the narrative relies on sudden shocks that feel disconnected from the journey leading up to them.
Combat that struggles to carry the experience
Combat is where Code Violet should shine, but it rarely rises above functional frustration. Encounters rely heavily on backward dodging, basic shooting, and crowd control that never meaningfully evolves. Enemy variety is limited, and while different dinosaurs exhibit slightly different behaviors, most encounters resolve the same way: retreat, fire, repeat. Boss fights change the scale but not the strategy, turning climactic moments into longer versions of standard skirmishes.
Technical issues compound these problems. Camera behavior in tight spaces frequently obscures action, turning already chaotic encounters into disorienting messes. Stealth mechanics exist, but feel unreliable or outright unnecessary due to enemy awareness and scripted ambushes. When challenge does appear, it often comes not from smart design but from erratic AI, awkward hit detection, or systems working against one another rather than in harmony.
Bottom line
Code Violet reaches for the legacy of classic sci-fi survival horror but falls short of understanding what made those games endure. Its story lacks focus, its environments fail to sustain tension, and its combat systems feel underdeveloped and technically unstable. While there are fleeting moments of visual flair and isolated ideas worth exploring, they’re buried beneath repetition and mechanical frustration. This isn’t a rediscovered cult gem or a bold reinvention—it’s a reminder that atmosphere, agency, and design cohesion matter far more than provocative concepts alone. For all its ambition, Code Violet never quite finds the control or clarity needed to make its survival fantasy feel alive.
Next Week
Every newsletter has a lot to look forward to, and we are in active communication with several developers and studios. More to come next week!
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