How Motörhead’s music, plus Lemmy’s weapon expertise, shaped action RPG Victor Vran ~ PS4 games

mercredi 17 mai 2017

How Motörhead’s music, plus Lemmy’s weapon expertise, shaped action RPG Victor Vran

06:08 PlayStation.Blog.Europe No comments

As one of the ideas behind the game is to journey through the 40 years of Motörhead, we wanted to feature a mix of old and new tracks, as well as a mix of must-have classics like ‘Ace of Spades’ and hidden gems like ‘Jailbait’.

At the time of closing all the contracts with the band and various record labels, ‘Aftershock’ was Motörhead’s most recent masterpiece – a brilliant album that will surely live on! That’s why the three tracks from that album are the newest in the game.

‘Aftershock”s masterpiece ‘Queen of the Damned’ was high on our must-have list from the start. From the very beginning of writing the game’s concept I wanted to bring the Queen to life, as she perfectly represents the battle between Rich and Poor, apart from also being one of my all-time-favourite Motörhead tracks!

Early concept art for the Pub at the End of Time – with Motörhead classic ‘End of Time’ the natural backing.

What was generally important to us was to get as many instrumental versions as possible. One reason was a drive for even more exclusive fan-fest material that hadn’t been released, but the main reason was that listening to lyrics all the time during gameplay, can get distracting. Now we have the perfect mix – 13 tracks, old & new, plus 12 instrumentals, plus the crazy remixed “Monument of Rock” versions.

The interest of the band in the project was what started it all. We originally intended to license a couple of tracks and that was it. But the more we talked, the more the question was raised “Why not do more than just the music? Let’s do a Motörhead GAME!” It was a close collaboration from the first minute.

The band was also deeply involved in the process of creating the story and which quotes and anecdotes to include. Naturally, they also created the costumes that Victor Vran can wear.

Lemmy was involved the most, due to his major role in the game. And of course, when it came to the weapons – as everybody knows he was an avid collector of swords and knives. So, we got a lot of comments from him about the weapons concepts we created. It was a lot of fun to get Lemmy’s direct feedback which was, of course, never censored… couldn’t be more direct in fact, like “this one is total nonsense! It would f**king break in a few seconds when you use it! Make this part thicker!!”… “This is silly!! Scrap it!”

Because of the trust between band, management and developers we were given access to all the original recordings, even for the songs that go back almost 40 years. That means that we were able to mess around with every separate layer, or stem, of each song. I can’t express how proud I am that we were allowed to use those. Working on them and listening to them is like time travel, like walking right into the Roundhouse Studios sessions, back in the 70s.

Bomber and Iron Fist are iconic tracks that need to be in the game. These are transformed in game to special attacks to smash your enemies.

In the game there are many special locations that feature a so-called “Monument of Rock”. When Victor activates such a monument, we are muting whatever track the general soundtrack is playing, and activate the monument’s own individual remix. That may start with just the bass playing, after a successfully defeated monster wave, another instrument gets added – or the vocals. It is always different and it makes the sound experience absolutely unique.

The monster-spawning phases are intertwined with the rhythm of the chosen song, thus making some “Monuments of Rock” escalate faster than others. In the end, when Victor defeats all the monsters, the song is complete and the monument spits out tons of treasures. A very fulfilling feeling which makes you long for the next one.

And here’s the track list for the game. Make sure to crank the volume up good and loud – it’s the only way to listen to Motörhead and to play the loudest video game in the world!: