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Gaming is all about capturing the senses, but short of bringing Smell-O-Vision cards back from the ’60s, there hasn’t been a way to immerse the ol’ schnoz in a video game. Until Wick & Skull stepped in with its new line of officially licensed video game candles, that is.
Wick & Skull was gracious enough to send me multiple candles to try, with scents inspired by Call of Duty, Dead By Daylight, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill grocery store candles, either; they each pack a punch of fragrance that they claim will enhance your gameplay experience and further immerse in the game’s world. Most of the offerings I was sent came in Wick & Skull’s standard 8 oz metal jar, with enough wax to burn for 35 hours each, according to the labeling. I chose to measure this by starting and stopping a stopwatch every time I burned one of the candles–the Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands candle lasted about 32 hours, just shy of the 35-hour mark, which did genuinely impress me, as I’ve run into candles that vastly overestimated their burn time before.
The Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands candle is labeled as smelling “chaotic great,” which apparently translates to a floral, fruity sugar plum scent. Ultimately, I really enjoyed it, and I did make sure to play the game while burning it to see if it really does enhance the gameplay experience–something I can’t empirically confirm, but it did smell nice while I played.
The two Dead By Daylight candles are both meant to evoke the scents of the game, with the Trapper scent smelling like “darkness, despair, and horror,” which ends up being a very overpowering mix of musk, incense, and smoke, and the Hex Totem candle (the only one that came in a taller frosted glass jar instead of the metal jar the rest came in) giving notes of smoke, amber, and leather. The Trapper candle is meant to evoke, well, The Trapper, so maybe the overpowering scent is meant to put you more on edge while running from him in Dead By Daylight. However, the Hex Totem candle very quickly became one of my favorite candles to burn, with its delicate smoky amber scent being a great go-to fragrance for the home.
Finally, the Call of Duty candles offer Nuketown, Second Chance, and Pacific fragrances. Nuketown smells like “gunpowder, smoke, and total chaos,” which ends up being a very spicy and smoky citrus/ginger scent, Second Chance carries a potent musk and amber mixture meant to evoke fights in the in-game gulag, and Pacific, meant to smell like “a tropical vacation with 150 friends.” In the case of Second Chance, the actual scent is much more pleasant than you would expect the gulag to have. And Pacific, with its notes of coconut, sandalwood, and cedar, is a great, summery scent to burn as the weather warms up.
Overall, the scents are incredibly varied, and with their $20 price point for an 8 oz jar, they won’t break the bank as much as some other candle brands, some of which can get as high as $10 per ounce of wax. They would make a great gift for any video game enthusiast, or even just a great way to dip your toes into the pool of having your home smell exactly the way you want. Maybe make sure your guests are okay with the haunting scents of the MacMillan estate before you light The Trapper one for them, though.
