Metal Tales: Overkill combined two things I loved from the two biggest worlds that I’m a part of: roguelikes and metal. Taking centre stage is a musician of your choice, battling through various venues with riffing metal in the background, and some bosses themed around various songs in the soundtrack. Being massively into the underground metal scene, I knew a nice chunk of these bands, and with my work with Deep Dive Discography (the music side of my journalism), I knew just the people to reach out to and ask a good chunk of these bands questions about their involvement with the game. Here are a variety of small interviews with bands, in the order that they’re listed in the games directory!

 

Hyperion

Surprisingly not named after the gun company from Borderlands (as far as I’m aware), Hyperion are an insanely melodic and speedy black metal band out of Sweden. Their last release Seraphical Euphory was released on the label Black Lion Records in 2016. Featured in the game is “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” which is a brilliant track, but spans almost seven minutes, so you might want to throw it up on Spotify to hear it in full. Thankfully, guitarists Erik Molnar and Joel Hagroth were kind enough to answer a few questions about being in the game, and gaming themselves.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

Erik: We were contacted by the developers and being somewhat into gaming ourselves, we simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to have one of our songs included. As I understand it, Novus Ordo Seclorum was used as a soundtrack to a boss fight, so…yeah, wow!

 

Joel: Yep, it’s one of those odd and fun happenings for us, for sure. We were on the original game as well, and then they asked for a renewed permission for Overkill.

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

Erik: Nope, not in the slightest.

 

Joel: Me neither, but there’s this Spanish guy who has pictures of the game all over his Facebook and apparently became a fan of ours thanks to it, so I get the feeling that it must be more widespread in e.g. Spain.

 

Are you gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

Erik: Personally, yes I’m a gamer. I’m currently playing a lot of Dark Souls 3. I love the dark, epic and tragic atmosphere. It’s just magnificent. I also play some classic games such as Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I haven’t played Metal Tales: Overkill though, but I’ve seen some gameplay videos on YouTube. It looks entertaining enough, haha!

 

Joel: Absolutely! Haven’t played this one yet, but it was quite a rush hearing “Novus” in a video game setting when I checked out a playthrough. Erik is a big fan of Diablo, so I think Metal Tales should be right up his alley! The latest games I’ve been playing are Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Valheim, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I’m a big fan of interesting worlds (including historical renditions of our own) and storytelling, and most of all I’m just waiting for another installment of The Elder Scrolls or The Witcher.

 

BlackList 9

BlackList 9 are the perfect type of band to discover in a game like Metal Tales: Overkill. Their track “Madness” is as hard-hitting as they come, but blends genres in a way that might not appeal to everyone. BlackList 9 are essentially a crossover of heavier hardcore bands like Cancer Bats, and djentier death metal like Decapitated. Worst case if its not your thing, the song works great with the game, so I’m sure any metal fan can jam along all the same.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

Chris Poland from Eclipse Records asked us if we’d be interested in having one of our songs on a video game, we said hell yeah!

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

Not at first, but we checked it out. Looks like a great game with great music!……

 

Are you gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

Haven’t got a chance to play the game, but we will very soon, excited to see where our song comes out!

 

Sifting

Sifting are a really neat Progressive Metal band from Venezuela/America. This is a band with a lot of really cool hooks to their music, a ton of riff, and so many sounds going on at any time. Think of Buckethead’s “Jordan” (the notoriously difficult song in Guitar Hero II), but made way better. Sifting’s “A Chemical Affair” from their latest album, The Infinite Loop, is Dream Theatre at its best, wrapped up into a more digestible piece, and works great with the pace of Metal Tales: Overkill.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

Our label guy Chris Poland reached out to us back in 2020 about this awesome guitar-shooter video game featuring metal music!! We were like “WTF?? How cool is that??”. He told us they were looking for unique metal tracks for the soundtrack and that they loved “A Critical Affair” from our latest album “The Infinite Loop”. We felt so humbled and excited at the time! We can’t believe we’ve been waiting two years for this release and it’s finally here for all the metalheads out there to play a killer game with killer music! This is a blast!!!

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

Not really, we weren’t familiar with the game, but it didn’t take long for us to fall in love with the idea and the game itself. This game is definitely a pioneer in showcasing metal music for its entire soundtrack! It’s making history! And we’re very happy to be part of it! Hell yeah!

 

Are you gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

Yes, we are gamers and we’re getting Metal Tales ASAP!!! We’ve been playing Zelda Skyward Sword, FIFA 22, and Battlefield.

 

Through The Noise

Metalcore act Through The Noise lend their song “Psychomania” to Metal Tales: Overkill. For fans of bands like Trivium, Through The Noise bring a hard hitting song to the fast paced gameplay of Metal Tales. Preferably just make sure to end the fight before the chorus because it slows down a bit there.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

We were contacted by Chris, the head of our label Eclipse Records, and he asked us if we wanted to be featured in an upcoming game by the developer Zerouno Games. After we got the details, we picked the song “Psychomachia” from our 2019 full-length album Dualism to be featured. Actually, the version included in the game is an exclusive and one of a kind mix of the song. When the song was decided, we had to deliver an instrumental version of it. Then it struck us; we didn’t have an instrumental version of the song! We contacted the album sound and mixing engineer Erik Wiss, from Tone Tension Productions, to help us get the files needed. Unfortunately he was currently living abroad and the album files where in a storage in Stockholm. But, we still had all the master files with the raw tracks in Marcus home studio. So, we used them to recreate the sound from the album, then send the files to Erik across the Atlantic ocean and he then remixed the song. The final result was really great and we are really proud to have it featured in the game.

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

No, but we were presented with some in-game footage, the overall plot and we thought it looked cool as hell! It’s awesome to be featured among other really great bands and artists. We were sent a link to an early demo version of the game and some of us played it over and over. It’s been quite a wait for the game, since we became involved, but it was really worth it.

 

Are you much of gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

I downloaded the game yesterday and have just started playing it for real. I’ve just finished the second level so I haven’t come much far in the game yet. I really like the game and it’s right up my alley with a roguelike shooter. And the overall metal theme really boost the experience. I play a lot of video games, both on retro consoles like NES or SEGA Mega Drive (the Genesis in the US) and on more recent consoles like the Xbox One. The most recent games I’ve played are Gears Of War 5 and Cuphead. The latter one might be one of the most challenging games I’ve ever played and I’m no stranger to hard and unforgiving games like Ninja Gaiden or the Mega Man series! After playing video games for almost all my life and now to have our music featured in a game is beyond cool and something I am stoked about.

 

Genus Ordinis Dei

Symphonic extreme metal always works well with these kinds of games, and that’s exactly what Genus Ordinis Dei brings to the table. Melodic, symphonic, akin to that of Atlus Pain, Genus Ordinis Dei’s song “Hunt” is the perfect mid-tempo style song to keep your attention.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

Our label Eclipse Records came out with this proposal and we just said: Why not? Seems cool!

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

We didn’t know the game at all actually.

 

Are you gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

I can say that I still am a gamer, but definitely a slow paced one. I mean, I tried the demo of Metal Tales and it was too fast for me 🙂 I really suck in this kind of roguelike games, but I really appreciated the soundtrack and the theme of the game. I don’t have so much time to play video games right now but I recently reissued one of my favorites: Baldur’s Gate II. Old but gold.

 

Striker

Canada’s Striker were likely the first band on this soundtrack that I had ever heard of. Even having had the chance to see them a couple times as they toured, so I knew I had to check out any game with them in the soundtrack. “Out For Blood” is doomed to be a metal anthem, from the band 2016 album Stand in the Fire, this is a crazy fast paced thrash/power metal track that fits in perfectly with its sing-song chorus, and blistering riffs. There’s also a saxophone, because why not.

 

How did you come to have your song in Metal Tales: Overkill?

We were working with a promotion company out of Germany that pitched the idea to us of having a song in a “crazy heavy metal top-down shooter” and we thought that sounded sick!

 

Were you familiar with what the game was when you were approached about it?

No, it was the first we had heard of it. I guess when it comes to video games we are sort of the typical gamers who play the big release games, but we’ve definitely been keeping an eye out for more of these indie games ever since.

 

Are you much of gamers yourselves? If so, have you had a chance to play Metal Tales: Overkill yourselves and what games have you been playing recently?

Yes, most of us are. Together as a band we often play games like Warzone and get mad and rage quit every time. Metal Tales was a lot of fun, it had been a while since we played a top-down shooter-style game like that and it was great!

 

Did you enjoy these interviews for the bands that were featured in Metal Tales: Overkill? Please let us know in the comments!