Brütal Legend
Encyclopedia
Brütal Legend is an action-adventure
/real-time strategy game created by Double Fine Productions
and published by Electronic Arts
for the PlayStation 3
and Xbox 360
. The game was released during October 2009 in North America and Europe. Though Brütal Legend was originally to be published by Vivendi Games
prior to its merger with Activision
, Activision had dropped the game from its portfolio after the merger. It was later picked up by Electronic Arts, though Activision and Double Fine brought counter-lawsuits against each other over publishing issues. The issues were settled out of court.
Tim Schafer
, the game's creative director, was inspired to create the game by his own past musical experiences. The game features the character of Eddie Riggs, voiced by and modeled after Jack Black
, a roadie who is transported to a fantasy world inspired by the artwork of heavy metal
album covers. Eddie becomes the world's savior, leading the down-trodden humans against a range of supernatural overlords using a battle axe
, his Flying V
guitar that can tap into the magical powers of the world, and a customizable hot rod
.
The game, a hybrid of the action-adventure
and real-time strategy genres, includes Stage Battles in both the single-player and multiplayer mode, where the player must command troops to defeat their foes while defending their own stage. In addition to Black, the game features voices of heavy metal musicians including Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford
, Ozzy Osbourne
and Lita Ford
and other celebrities such as Tim Curry
, as well as more than one hundred metal songs selected by Schafer for inclusion in the game.
Brütal Legend was generally well-received by game reviewers, praising Schafer's vision and writing of the heavy metal-inspired world, and the performances of the voice cast, particularly Black and Osbourne. Many found the hybrid gameplay of action and real-time strategy games did not mix well, however, blaming console control limitations and missing features normally found in games of either genre.
that Tim Schafer
has described as being approximately 40 square miles (103.6 km²) in area. The player controls the protagonist Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black
), a roadie who one day finds himself transported into a fantasy heavy metal world. Eddie acquires three tools that are used for combat and transportation: a broad axe called "The Separator", his Flying V
guitar "Clementine" from his own world which has the ability to cast magic spells in the heavy metal world, and a hot rod
that Eddie builds called "The Druid Plow", a.k.a. "The Deuce". Launching magical attacks from Clementine is performed by playing a minigame
akin to the note-matching aspect of Guitar Hero
or Rock Band
over a brief guitar riff; however, Eddie cannot use the magic generated by Clementine constantly, as prolonged usage of the guitar will result in it turning red hot, and the player will have to wait for a cool-off period before using the guitar's power again. The player can spend in-game currency called "Fire Tributes
", earned from completing missions, at the Motor Forge, to gain new abilities and upgrades for each tool. These tools can be used in combination with each other to take out Eddie's foes; for example, the player can use his guitar Clementine to create pyrotechnics
to launch a foe into the air and follow up by attack it with the Separator ax. In a case of a specific boss fight
, the player must use the Deuce hot rod to lure the boss to a spiked gate held up by counterweights, and then play the "Earthshaker" move on Clementine to destroy the weights and sever the creature's head.
Within the open world, the player can use a map and the Deuce's turn signals to guide them towards either story-advancing missions or side missions. Side missions include hot-rod races against a demon, defending Eddie's allies from a pending attack, or helping a cannon operator spot his targets. There are about 23 main missions in the story with 30 side missions that the player can optionally take. The player can also explore the game's world to find statues bound in leather or chains that can be freed to gain a health boost for Eddie or to reveal part of the game's backstory, and can look through special telescopes at vistas or complete certain jumps to earn additional Fire Tributes. The player can also find monuments they can raise that unlock an additional heavy metal song from the game's soundtrack that can be played on the Deuce's radio, "The Mouth of Metal"; the player can further customize its set list with songs they have been rewarded with or have collected.
Several main story missions of the game are Stage Battles based on real time strategy elements. The player, while still in control of Eddie, is required to defend a giant stage where new allies will spawn, holding out until a specific objective is completed. The player creates an army for attacks by building merchandise booths on "fan geysers" through Clementine's magic. Once enough fans are collected, the player can summon different allies, each consuming a specific number of fans, or upgrade their stage to allow them to produce more powerful allies. A character known as Mangus acts as the "sound guy" to help in the construction of these units and stage upgrades, and also warns the player of enemy attacks. Once the player has gathered their army, they can then seek out and attack their opponents. Eddie is able to control the entire army to follow, attack, or defend a point, and can use specialized squads of specific units to perform certain tasks, such as having a group of headbangers
use their headbanging to destroy statues. The player can also use Eddie directly in combat during this battles. Ultimately, Eddie transforms into a winged demon who can fly above the battlefields to issue orders or lay out attacks. Other spells in Eddie's arsenal can help control the performance of his armies, such as temporarily boosting their attack skills or creating a rally flag which troops will gather at. Each of the different units, including special allies that Eddie meets in the game, has a special co-op move they can perform with Eddie; for example, Eddie's first ally, Ophelia, can be tossed at foes by Eddie in the style of the Fastball Special
. These co-op moves are also available outside of Stage Battle missions.
The game has a multiplayer mode, described by Schafer as "your typical head-to-head, battle of the bands scenario. But with axes." The multiplayer modes are team-based and play in the same manner as the single-player Stage Battles, with team sizes from one-versus-one to four-versus-four. Each team selects from one of three factions which affect what resources and troops they can summon, and are tasked with defending their stage from attack by the other team. The three factions available are Ironheade, mostly human-based troops led by Eddie Riggs; The Drowning Doom, with more Goth/Black Metal creatures led by Ophelia; and The Tainted Coil, evil creatures controlled by Doviculus. Each player controls a single main avatar who has the same abilities as in the main game for combat and magic spells and can also fly about the map, but also is in control of troops that they may summon from the team's shared resources—fans as generated by fan geysers across the map. Different types of troops are available, costing various amounts of fans to summon, with the potential to upgrade to improved units through different routes. The number and types of troops that can be summoned is limited by a cap to prevent either team from becoming too overpowered. All of the troops can be engaged by the player to initiate various "Double Team" moves as with the single player game. The game can also be played by a single player with computer-controller opponents at one of five difficulty levels.
, the mascot of Iron Maiden
, and Derek Riggs
, the artist who created Eddie), who is "the world's best roadie
" for "the world's worst 'heavy metal
' band",. Much of the game takes place in an unnamed world inspired by heavy metal music, created by, according to the game's mythology, Ormagöden, The Eternal Firebeast, Cremator of the Sky, and Destroyer of the Ancient World. In this alternate world, the human race is enslaved by Doviculus, Emperor of the Tainted Coil, (voiced by Tim Curry
). Doviculus is assisted by his glam metal
human minion, General Lionwhyte (voiced by Rob Halford
and based on David Bowie
with the name being an allusion to glammetal band White Lion
) whose hair is so big "and luscious" that he uses it to fly, flapping it like a pair of broad wings. Leading the fight against Doviculus are a small band of human resistance fighters with whom Eddie joins forces: Lars Halford (voiced by Zach Hanks), his sister Lita (voiced by Kath Soucie
), and Ophelia (voiced by Jennifer Hale
), whom Eddie takes a romantic interest in. Their group is later joined by the stage manager Mangus (Alex Fernandez
), the bass-playing healer Kill Master (voiced by, and patterned after Lemmy Kilmister), the motorcycle-riding Fire Baron (also voiced by Halford, as well as visually inspired by him too), and the Amazonian Rima (voiced by Lita Ford
and based on KISS
characters). Also supporting Eddie is the Guardian of Metal (voiced by Ozzy Osbourne
, who also lent his appearance to the character) that assists in upgrading his equipment.
Eddie helps Lars, Lita, and Ophelia create an army, named "Ironheade" to fight against General Lionwhyte. They successfully raid Lionwhyte's "Pleasure Tower" and defeat him. However, as they celebrate, Doviculus arrives, sending the group into hiding. Doviculus is aware of the presence of his spy "Succoria" by the smell of her blood as it was at the Temple; Eddie and his allies come to believe Ophelia is Doviculus' spy. Lars leaves his hiding spot to face Doviculus, but is quickly killed. As Doviculus causes the tower to tear itself apart, Ironheade escapes into the nearby mountains; Eddie is forced to leave with Lita leaving Ophelia behind despite their shared love. Heartbroken, Ophelia drowns herself in the Sea of Black Tears, and is transformed into the leader of the goth "Drowning Doom". After three months, she leads an attack on Ironheade's mountain camp. Though Ironheade defeats the assault, Eddie determines they must destroy the Sea to end her threat. As they travel through exotic lands and finding more allies out of the pyromanical Fire Barons and the amazonian Zaulia tribe, they come across evidence of Eddie's father, the hero known as Riggnarok in this time. It tells that Riggnarok traveled to the future to attempt to learn the secrets of the Titans to bring back to the past in the humans' ongoing fight against the demons, but never returned.
With their new allies, Ironheade manages to push the Drowning Doom back towards the Sea of Black Tears; defeated, Ophelia denies Eddie's belief that she is Doviculus' spy, again claiming that Eddie's the traitor. As they argue, Doviculus arrives and confirms that Succoria is not Ophelia, but Eddie's mother. In the past, Succoria, an even more vicious demon empress, also sought the Titans' secrets in the future, but discovering that humankind eventually prevailed, fell into despair. Riggnarok, who had followed Succoria through time to assassinate her, took pity on her in her despair, and the two fell in love and bore Eddie. Now in the past, Eddie's demon nature has borne out, and also has inadvertently revealed the Titans' secrets to Doviculus as well, and has allowed him to create a powerful army to overrun the humans. Having no more use for Ophelia, Doviculus rips out her heart, taking her powers alongside his own and causing Ophelia to dissipate. While Ironheade battles Doviculus' forces, Eddie engages Doviculus in a one-on-one confrontation, which ends with the demon emperor's decapitation. As Eddie escapes the Sea, he recovers Ophelia's heart from Doviculus, containing his mother's necklace he gave her when they first met, and then proceeds to rescue the real Ophelia from the ocean floor. Ashore, they rekindle their love as Ironheade celebrates their victory over Doviculus and the Tainted Coil. Back at Bladehenge, a statue to Lars is erected, while Lita continues to lead the troops against the remaining demons. Eddie insists on maintaining his "roadie" presence, staying behind the scenes and making others look good. After he promises he is not leaving to his assembled friends, Eddie takes off to complete a few errands, with Ophelia watching as he drives off into the sunset, shedding a single black tear.
fan since high school, and roadies have long fascinated him. As Schafer said in 2007, "The name was one of the very first things I thought of, over fifteen years ago. I was riding a bus, thinking about a game that would be the complete opposite of what we were working on, The Secret of Monkey Island
[a Lucasfilm Games
title released in 1990]. And Brütal Legend leapt into my head. I've been hanging on to that name ever since." The title, which he describes as sounding "like the hardest core fantasy thing out there", makes use of the metal umlaut. The idea behind the game first came to Schafer about fifteen years prior to its release, but its core concepts did not completely come together until after the completion of Psychonauts
(2005), when he presented his idea for the game to the team, they became excited at the concept and decided to make that their next title.
Part of the game's inspiration came from the fantasy worlds that the lyrics and album covers of metal bands implied but rarely made it to music video
s, thus allowing Brütal Legend to "fulfill the promise" of such lore. Schafer also credits a Megadeth
roadie named Tony he once met as having given him the idea to make a game about a roadie, with the character of Eddie Riggs becoming a re-imagined version of him. Schafer had previously explored the idea of a roadie sent back in time with the character of Hoagie from Day of the Tentacle
, but Brütal Legend represented an opportunity to expand on it further. The 2003 movie School of Rock
also reminded Schafer of his idea for Brütal Legend, and made him more excited to publish it. Double Fine's philosophy on game development was also another reason for Brütal Legends creation, as Schafer has stated that his team attempts to make each game radically different from the company's previous release, contrasting Brütal Legend to Psychonauts. Schafer stated that the commercial tie-ins of Brütal Legend, such as "hot babes and Jack Black", is due to this philosophy and not due to market pressures. Schafer was not concerned about the commercial success of Brütal Legend, as despite poor sales of Psychonauts, "as long as you make a cool game, publishers want to talk to you". When Schafer was pitching the game before 2006, he received feedback about changing the game's style to hip hop
or country
. He credits Harmonix Music Systems
for influencing the rhythm game
market through the release of the widely successful Guitar Hero with a soundtrack that heavily emphasized metal music; with the popularity of Guitar Hero, the metal approach in Brütal Legend was readily accepted.
Schafer has pointed out that there are music term inspired attacks, such as a "Face-Melting" guitar solo, which literally will melt the foe's faces off. The metal/motorcyclist lifestyles and Norse mythology
also inspired the game's open-world environments, such as amps carved into the face of a mountain, a forest where tires replace leaves, giant axes and swords piercing the ground, spandex covered temples, and mining facilities where human slaves excavated car and motorcycle parts. However, Schafer noted that they attempted to make sure that non-metal fans would be able to get the jokes as well.
and inspired by heavy metal and rock
album cover
s. The team only considered the addition of elements to the artwork if they felt it would be something that could be seen on such covers. The setting includes hot rod
-like engines that grow from the earth like a "V8 Truffle Of Speed", with design inspired by the designs of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth
. The art team wanted to avoid creating "another brown-gray game", and strove to use the wide color palettes that are associated with heavy metal art. Cutscene
s in the game use the game's engine, though some pre-recorded scenes from the engine have also been prepared with the help of Tasha Harris, a former Pixar
employee and who helped to animate character's faces during cutscenes.
The game features over 80 unique characters in addition to the main protagonist, Eddie Riggs. Initial designs for Riggs was modeled after Lemmy Kilmister, and though the model was changed, the signature vest, tour pass and cigarette of the character remained part of the character design. As the character continued to develop, they began to add more aspects of Black's character, an "enthusiastic fan" of music, from School of Rock. Ultimately, Riggs' design came to become half Jack Black and half Glenn Danzig
. The art team was able to use videos of Black's performances to add additional features to the character, such as "all his crazy eyebrow stuff he does". General Lionwhyte, who has "fabulous hair", and his minions are based on the glam metal
fad of the 1980s which displaced heavy metal to the disappointment of Schafer and other development team members, and became the opponents of the game. To help create a more mature game with concepts that could be used to pitch the game, the art team created several factions that represented different parts of the heavy metal experience. Each faction had their own "exaggerated, simplified shapes and strong silhouettes" as to help distinguish each faction while also reducing the development costs. Inspirations for such factions include Nordic imagery
, goth metal
, and the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch. Additional characters include headbangers, "gravediggers", and "battle nuns". As the game features over two hours of spoken dialog, the art team wants to make the characters' faces and performances stand out, creating "clean, easy-to-read faces". The team had to change from their initial cartoony textures into more detailed ones that stood out on high-definition displays while exaggerating other features of the characters.
The user interface and menus were created by Joe Kowalski, who had previously worked on similar game elements for Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II
, and the Rock Band
series. Much of the game's interface elements used a medieval woodcut
art style, and were designed to contrast well against the world's graphics. The introductory menu is presented as an interactive movie created from live action clips of Jack Black manipulating a prop gatefold
vinyl record
album, using Adobe After Effects
to provide the on-screen text, controls handling, and stitching of separate scenes into a seamless movie.
's Rob Halford, The Runaways
' Lita Ford, and Ozzy Osbourne provide character voices for these lines. Though Eddie came to resemble Black, the team had not planned on having Jack Black voice the character. After learning that Black was a fan of Schafer's previous game, Psychonauts, they met with the actor
/musician
and recognized he was an avid gamer
and metal fan and understood all the choices the team made in the game, and subsequently signed on for the voice work
. Black also performed live-action sequences as himself used for the in-game menu screens and additional promotional material. Lemmy was brought on board to play The Killmaster after Schafer and his team had developed the character's role in the story who assists Eddie by healing his allies through a giant bass
harp on the back of a chopper
. The original character, a man with a top hat and beard, was considered out of place by Schafer, leading him to consider famous bass guitar players and quickly recognizing the need to have Lemmy play that role. Halford plays two characters, General Lionwhyte and The Baron. Schafer had selected Lionwhyte to capture Halford's ability to scream, and found his abilities in the studio beyond what they expected. They created The Baron character specifically for Halford, as while Lionwhyte was considered a "heavy metal Stewie
[from Family Guy
]", that character was the complete opposite of Halford, while The Baron captures both Halford and Judas Priest's attitude. Ford voices Rima, queen of a group of "Amazon-like jungle women"; Schafer considered the similarities between the lack of clothing that Rima was designed with and Ford's outfits from the 1980s, staying true to the development teams' memories of her. Osbourne plays The Guardian of Metal who helps the player upgrade their equipment; Schafer commented that both the character and Osbourne, while dark and brooding, are "really upbeat" and "optimistic".
Though Ronnie James Dio
of the band Dio
had performed parts for the game, his role was replaced with voice work from Tim Curry
. While the change was speculated to be due to tense issues between Osbourne and Dio, Schafer noted that as Dio's intended character, "Doviculus, Emperor of the Tainted Coil", grew, they found that Curry fit the role better for the part, citing Curry's role of the Lord of Darkness in the film Legend
as a key factor. Curry considered the role "perfect" for him when Schafer described Doviculus to him as "big and tough, but also has this kinky side who, when hit with an ax, might scream in pain or squeal with delight".
Similar to their experience with bringing Black onto the project, obtaining the voicework of the metal artists were also unexpected but beneficial. This led to some confusion during voice recording sessions; both Lita Ford and Rob Halford had difficulties with lines involving a character named "Lita Halford". Furthermore, both Black and Osbourne frequently injected profanity
into their scripted lines during recording sessions. Instead of rerecording these, the development left these in the game, but included the option for a profanity content filter to be enabled by the player to "bleep" out these words and mask such word on screen using the Parents Music Resource Center
"Parental Advisory
" label, an icon that Schafer considered to be part of the history of heavy metal. A similar filter exists for gore
in the game, preventing any dismemberment and disabling blood in the game. Schafer stated the filters were added to the game in consideration of older players that may not wish to see such aspects, or for parents who opt to play the game with younger children. During development, Schafer stated that while he could not confirm what other musicians and bands would be in the game, there would be more than already stated, and that these musicians were "especially conducive to character creation" due to the amount of theatrics used in their concert shows.
Kyle Gass
, Black's collaborator with Tenacious D
, voices and lends his facial likeness to a neurotic cannon operator in the game. Comedians David Cross
, Steve Agee
, Brian Posehn
, and Wil Wheaton
have also provided voice work for the game; Posehn had previously worked with Schafer on their high school newspaper. David Sobolov
was also confirmed as a voice actor for other roles in the game; Sobolov noted that he recorded his lines separate from Black's despite his characters' having direct interaction with Riggs. Richard Horvitz, who voiced protagonist Raz in Schafer's previous game, Psychonauts, cameos as the lead guitarist of Kabbage Boy and as a car-lift operator that assigns Eddie certain side missions. Further voice acting work has been provided by veteran video game actors such as Zach Hanks, Kath Soucie
, Dino Andrade
and Jennifer Hale
.
, industrial metal
, black metal
, and doom metal
, with each faction in the game favoring a specific type. Though Schafer and others on the Double Fine team had vast knowledge of specific types of metal, Ridgway turned to a used-CD store owner named Allan from Aquarius Records
who had "encyclopedic knowledge" of the entire genre, and who provided the team with sample CDs to help them discover some of the more obscure metal bands. Schafer also credits Black with some of the music selections for the game. Instead of relying on labels or bands to provide them with a list of possible songs to select from, the development team sought permission to use specific songs they wanted in the game. In some cases, obtaining appropriate licensing proved difficult, as for songs from bands that had long split up, Double Fine needed to contact each band member to gain permission. This proved to be valuable, as some original bands were excited about their music being used in the game; in one case, Lita Ford was able to provide the game with a song with slight modifications to the lyrics from a version that she was about to release. One song is from the in-game band "Kabbage Boy" for which Eddie is a roadie at the start of the game.
In addition to licensed music, the game includes over 70 minutes of original score by Tim Schafer's long term collaborator Peter McConnell
. McConnell composed pieces for orchestra and Metal band to tie in with the licensed music in the game. Also, the in-game soundtrack contains an instrumental drum track played by Slough Feg drummer Harry Cantwell, and the solos triggered by the player during the game were composed and recorded by Judas Priest
guitarists Glenn Tipton
(Eddie's solos) and K.K. Downing (Ophelia's and Doviculus' solos).
While Schafer would like to have a soundtrack album for the game, he stated that there were already difficulties in securing the licenses for songs within the game and was not sure if it would be possible to extend them to a soundtrack. Schafer helped to select three songs—"We Are The Road Crew" by Motorhead, "The Metal" by Tenacious D, and "More Than Meets The Eye" by Testament—to appear in a pack of Rock Band
downloadable songs
that was made available the same day as Brütal Legends release.
The track is merged with the song "More Than Meets the Eye".
for Brütal Legend, which they found worked well with their company's culture, allowing them to quickly arrive at playable targets at every milestone. For example, the team was able to bring about their terrain engine and renderer and a playable Eddie Riggs within a month of development, and by the third month, the ability for Eddie to drive about the terrain, running over hordes of enemies.
Schafer stated that they began the development with the character of Eddie, and recognizing what he should be doing in the game—specifically, swinging around his axe, playing his guitar, and driving his hot rod. Once they found this combination of elements to work well in combat and general gameplay, they were able to expand out the rest of the game from there, as these elements provided a means of testing the game to make sure it remained enjoyable. The first major feature developed for the game was the multiplayer element, given that no previous game from Double Fine had included this feature, and was the highest risk element to the game. The multiplayer was developed with its core as a real-time strategy game based on Herzog Zwei
, though simplified to focus more on an action-style game than on strategy. The team used the 2.5 version Unreal engine
with UnrealScript
to build their initial concepts for the real-time strategy elements to allow the gameplay and designers to able to commence work while another team worked on their own game engine. With the multiplayer aspects completed, Double Fine was then able to tailor the single player campaign as a tutorial for the multiplayer experience. Following the multiplayer element was the development of the "streaming world", also an element the team had no prior experience with. Double Fine developed several in-house tools to help streaming the content-creation process for the game's world: an automated testing bot, RoBert (so named after one of the software test engineers) was created to put the daily builds of the game through stress tests and player experience throughout the clock and automate any error reports to developers, while a Multi-User-Editor building tool relied on database backend to allow the games' artists to work on sections of the game world simultaneously without data loss. The development team ran into content problems late in the game's development in January 2009, as several assets were simultaneously completed and tripled the amount of content for the game, based on disk space. They were able to wrangle the issues with the performance of their development systems and reoptimize the content for on-disc space, though plan to expand their infrastructure to handle such impacts for future games.
Schafer has stated that the development team discussed how guitar controllers from Guitar Hero or Rock Band could be used with the game, but determined there was no good way for players to switch from a standard controller to the guitar controller and back, and thus have "no plans" to include support for these controllers in the game. Players who preordered the game through GameStop
were able unlock a special promotional in-game guitar designed in conjunction with Black's band Tenacious D, and includes voices provided by both Black and Kyle Gass.
While Brütal Legends fate was unclear, Schafer was not able to talk about the project to avoid causing problems with any potential business deals, until EA Partners picked up the game in December 2008. However, even when the fate of the publication of the game was unsure, the team continued to work on its development. Schafer reflected that the time spent during development without a publisher was beneficial, allowing them to design the game without pressure from the publisher's goals. EA CEO John Riccitiello, when asked about EA picking up Brütal Legend for distribution prior to December 2008, commented that "Sometimes significant creative risks end up being some of the world’s best products".
When rumors of a possible Wii port arose in March 2009, Schafer stated that "We are making an Xbox 360 and a PS3 version of Brütal Legend." However, according to Ben Fritz at Variety
, another studio has been engaged by Electronic Arts to bring the game to the Wii, albeit at a later date than the other console versions, suggesting that it may follow the same model as Dead Space: Extraction
, a Wii title scheduled to be released about a year after Dead Space
s first release. However, further industry rumors, which claimed that the Wii version was being done by Electronic Arts in-house, have stated that the effort to port the game to the Wii has been canceled due to quality and technical concerns. There is presently no planned PC
version of the game, as Schafer has stated that the game is primarily an action game and "meant to be on a console".
Double Fine believed they were given the go-ahead to develop a sequel to Brütal Legend after the game's release, but were later told by EA that it was cancelled. Schafer stated that the sequel would likely incorporate much of what they had to drop prior to the game's release. This included more factions to fight and a game world three times larger than what Brütal Legend contained. Schafer also had ideas for a plot using a character voiced by Ronnie James Dio, but will not likely be used due to Dio's death. Instead of a sequel, Double Fine began work on four smaller projects, based on prototypes they had created from "Amnesia Fortnights" during the development period where they had lacked a publisher. In these two-weeks sessions, the Double Fine team was split into four groups and each tasked with creating a small prototype game to share with the rest of the company; all four mini-games were well received internally. Upon hearing of the cancellation of the sequel, Schafer and his team began to promote these games around, and were able to obtain publishing deals for all four titles. The games will be able to take advantage of the custom game world engine and other assets they had created for Brütal Legend.
; gaming journalists had received a vinyl record
from Activision that contained a backwards message
alluding to the game's story. The game's release in October 2009 was promoted as "Rocktober" in official literature about the game from Electronic Arts. At the 2009 Download Festival
in Donington Park
in England
, Electronic Arts
arranged for 440 fans of Brütal Legend to help to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of air guitar
players, all simultaneously playing to "Ace of Spades
" by Motorhead. A series of short online videos featuring Black (and Schafer in two instances), entitled "Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black", have been used to promote the game since May 2009. At the 2009 Video Music Awards, Black appeared in cosplay
as Eddie to promote the game.
A promotional concert for the game was held at the 2009 Comic-Con International
Convention in July 2009, and featured the metal artists Gwar
, 3 Inches of Blood
, Unholy Pink, and Keith Morris
. It has also been announced that Brutal Legend is the official sponsor of the 2009 Mastodon
/Dethklok
tour. Schafer appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
on October 2, 2009 to promote the game. Black appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 14, 2009, dressed as Eddie Riggs and staying in character during his interview.
A demo version of the game was made available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace and PlayStation Network Store; it was available for a limited time on September 17, 2009 for North American users who had pre-ordered the product through GameStop
. The demo became available to all Xbox Live Gold users on September 24, 2009, and to Xbox Live Silver users and all PlayStation 3 users the following week. The demo is based on the game's beginning, showing Eddie's arrival and his encounters up until the first boss character fight.
' subsidiary Sierra Entertainment
. In 2008, Activision
merged with Vivendi's game division (which included Blizzard Entertainment
) to become Activision Blizzard
, gaining the rights to publication of Brütal Legend. Upon evaluation of their assets, Activision Blizzard chose to drop Brütal Legend along with several other games, leaving the project in limbo. Double Fine themselves were unaware that Activision had chosen to drop the game, having been informed through an Activision press release that omitted the game from their upcoming release schedule, according to studio producer Caroline Esmurdoc. Industry rumors suggested that Electronic Arts
was interested in publishing the property, and it was confirmed in December 2008 that Electronic Arts would publish the game. During the period when Brütal Legends fate was unclear, Schafer was not able to talk about the project to avoid causing problems with any potential business deals.
In February 2009, Activision Blizzard had asserted that the Electronic Arts deal was invalid, believing that they were still in negotiations with Double Fine to publish the game. It was believed that Activision was seeking monetary compensation in a similar manner as it received from Atari
for Ghostbusters: The Video Game
and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
, games that were dropped when Activision Blizzard re-evaluated their assets. On June 4, 2009, Activision filed suit to prevent publishing of the game, claiming that they had invested $15 million in the title and still had a valid contract to release the game. Activision's suit also contends that Double Fine had missed a deadline for the game last year, requesting more time and an additional $7 million in development fees. Activision's considers both the loss of the money they spent on the game as well as potential sales and Brütal Legend-related merchandise as part of the harm done in the lawsuit.
In July 2009, Double Fine issued a countersuit against Activision, citing that the latter company had abandoned the project before, and was trying to harm Brütal Legend during its critical marketing phase, as well as trying to protect its Guitar Hero franchise. The countersuit stated that Activision had dropped the game after its merger with Vivendi and a failed attempt to convert the game into a Guitar Hero sequel. Schafer was infamously quoted as saying, in commenting on their actions, "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it. Oh great, now Beyonce
is going to sue me too."
In late July, the presiding judge, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan, reported that a preliminary ruling that could have affected the game's release would have been given on August 6, 2009, with Karlan tentatively ready to deny Activision's motion to delay the game. However, prior to the ruling, the companies announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement on the lawsuits, though details were not available.
Though most the developers involved in the game were shielded from the effects of the lawsuit, Double Fine's Caroline Esmurdoc noted that it took a significant toll on Schafer and the other lead executives at the company. Activision's lawsuit had been filed at the time the game had reached the alpha release state, and would need to be concluded prior to the game's final release; this required the executives to dedicate their time towards information gathering, interviewing, and other legal matters "during the crunchiest, most critical time of development". As such, while they ultimately were able to settle the legal matter, Esmurdoc believed that the impact of the effort in settling the lawsuit impacted the quality of the final product. Schafer wrote more than 50% of the game's dialog in the few months following the completion of the lawsuit and prior to release, a "big crunch" for him.
to further support the game after release. Two downloadable packs have since been released. The first, "Tears of the Hextadon", was released in early November 2009, containing two new multiplayer maps and a new single-player weapon. The pack was initially free on the PlayStation Network for the first two weeks of release. The second pack, "The Hammer of Infinite Fate", was released in mid-December 2009, and in addition to new multiplayer maps, expands the single-player experience by incorporating new weaponry for the Deuce, outfits for Eddie, a GPS system to track collectables in the game's world, and other additional content, including figureheads of Razputin, the lead character from Psychonauts, and Schafer himself.
felt Black was "completely committed" to the role of Riggs, while Giant Bomb
's Ryan Davis found it relieving that Black reined in his typical "loud-talking heavy-metal goofball" act that he is known for and instead performed well, "bringing just the right amount of working-man's matter-of-fact-ness to the role". Osbourne's role was considered "amazing (and surprisingly coherent)" by Gamespot
's Giancarlo Varanini and "played brilliantly" by Computer and Video Games
' Andrew Kelly. The full cast was commended for their roles; the heavy metal musicians were effective at playing themselves in the game, while the other voice talent performed well and "[did] their part to balance out the star power" in the game. The strength of the characters was considered to be enhanced by the quality of writing of the story, and the use of facial animation. Eurogamer
's Christian Donlan considered the characters of Brütal Legend to be the strongest aspect to the game, distancing the title from other video games due to "rounded, personable leads who are distinctly superior to the usual throngs of cybermen and super-vixens", and a facet of Schafer's signature work. Wired
s Chris Kohler further attested the strength of the game's story to Schafer's skill, considering that "After Brütal Legend, he should be considered one of the best storytellers in gaming, period." 1UP.com
's Justin Haywald noted that the game lacks the ability to review cutscenes, forcing the player to restart the story if they wanted to see these again.
The heavy metal-inspired world of Brütal Legend was also well received, and considered to show a clear reverence for the genre. Gerald Villoria of Gamespy
considered the game to be "dedicated to an unabashed love of metal" and "heavy metal fan-service to the highest degree". Davis believed that the juxtaposition of all the elements that made up the heavy metal fantasy world were the game's greatest strength, often being "both giddily ridiculous and fist-pumpingly badass" at the same time. Critics found that while the graphics for the game may not be the most sophisticated for the current console generation, the detailed art aspects of the world were impressive; Varanini considered that "no matter where you are in the world, there's always some cool object to look at", while Donlan considered the world to be a "constant unfolding delight". The incorporation of heavy metal music into the game also benefited the game. Both Kelly and Villoria considered the soundtrack essential to the game, and praised the moments where specific songs, such as Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" would be used as background music during specific game sequences. Kelly further praised the game for using the songs to define the action of the game instead of relegated to random background music. Villoria also considered the soundtrack to have "enormous breadth of sound and diversity", introducing the player to heavy metal genres they may not have known even existed. G4TV's Jake Gaskill considered listening to the soundtrack to be the equivalent of "taking a class in heavy metal appreciation."
The actual gameplay was seen as Brütal Legends largest weakness. Many reviewers were critical of the incorporation of real-time strategy (RTS) elements into the game, a fact that was not well advertised prior to the game's release and does not become apparent to the player in the first hours of the game. Though Schafer had set out to make the console-based game like an RTS from the start, they were warned by both Vivendi and Electronic Arts that "RTS" was "a naughty word in the console space", and instead marketed it as an action game. Despite this, reviewers found that the game was still difficult to play on a console due to the selected controls that made it difficult to target objectives or troops, the lack of a mini-map to track friends and foes, and the frantic pace of battle.
Critics did appreciate the slow introduction to the various aspects of the game as part of the single player game, but felt the game did not adequately introduce or explain all of the game's RTS features, such as the ability to mount a final stand on one's stage. Some also considered the single-player campaign Stage Battles to be too easy, winnable by brute force, and that more advanced tactics would only become apparent as one played in multiplayer games, including learning the abilities and advantages of the other units of the factions other than Ironheade. The mix of gaming genres between the RTS and third-person action was found particularly confusing; Kohler commented that the handling of the individual genres was accomplished well, leading to "an astoundingly complex design instead of a simple one" that diminished the enjoyment of the game, while Davis considered that "perhaps there wasn't enough confidence in any one piece to let it carry the whole game". However, some felt that the various genres helped to create "a variety of gameplay opportunities", and made for "rather elegant" Stage Battles. In retrospect, Schafer lamented the fact that they did not include enough tutorials in the game to guide the player as to "naturally how to play the strategy part a bit better", as they had come to accept over the years of development, and tried to use the Double Fine blog to explain some of these aspects.
Gameplay outside of the Stage Battles was also met with mixed impressions. Most considered the side missions highly repetitive, which included mission types that are generally disliked by gamers, such as escort missions. The lack of a mini-map, replaced by either following a glowing light from the sky illuminating the player's target or by navigating based on the Deuce's turn signals was criticized for making it difficult to explore the game's world. The information about the world that players can access the in the game's pause menu was also found to be lacking, showing neither the collectible elements of the game on the main map, nor easily identifying the alliance of the various troops in the in-game guidebook. Though Eddie gains the ability to fly during Stage Battles, the inability to use this or to make the character jump led to reviewers getting the character stuck on the landscape at times when exploring. Some reviewers found the number of progress checkpoints in the game to be lacking, requiring the player to repeat a long mission if they should die before reaching one. The single-player game was also considered to be short, lasting as little as four hours if one only completed the main story missions.
According to the NPD Group
, Brütal Legend sold approximately 215,000 copies in the United States in the month of October 2009, with about 150,000 copies being for the Xbox 360 platform, making it the 12th top selling game in that month. These numbers were not considered to be strong, and was attributed to the difficult marketing of the game, which emphasized Jack Black's involvement and the heavy metal nature of the game, but did not assert what the gameplay would actually be like, with the possibility that the mention of the RTS elements of the game would have possibly driven more players away from the game. In an interview in February 2011, Schafer claimed that the game has sold over 1.4 million copies. According to data collected through Nielsen SoundScan
, some songs contained within Brütal Legends soundtrack saw digital sales increases of up to 700% following the game's release, similar to the effects of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, though impact on overall sales of these songs were rather small.
Black was given the Best Voice award at the Spike Video Game Awards 2009. Brütal Legend won the "Best Strategy/Simulation Game" and "Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack" awards in the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
, and was nominated for "Outstanding Character Performance" (for Eddie Riggs), "Outstanding Achievement in Original Story", and "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction". The game was also nominated for the Game Developers Choice Awards
for "Best Writing" and "Best Audio".
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
/real-time strategy game created by Double Fine Productions
Double Fine Productions
Double Fine Productions is an American video game developer founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer after his departure from LucasArts. He started Double Fine with Programmers David Dixon and Jonathan Menzies in what was once a clog shop in San Francisco...
and published by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
for the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
. The game was released during October 2009 in North America and Europe. Though Brütal Legend was originally to be published by Vivendi Games
Vivendi Games
Vivendi Games, formerly known as Vivendi Universal Games, was the holdings company for Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. Vivendi Games was founded as Vivendi Universal Games after Vivendi bought Universal Studios in the early 2000s...
prior to its merger with Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
, Activision had dropped the game from its portfolio after the merger. It was later picked up by Electronic Arts, though Activision and Double Fine brought counter-lawsuits against each other over publishing issues. The issues were settled out of court.
Tim Schafer
Tim Schafer
Timothy Schafer is an American computer game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in January 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts...
, the game's creative director, was inspired to create the game by his own past musical experiences. The game features the character of Eddie Riggs, voiced by and modeled after Jack Black
Jack Black
Jack Black , is an American actor and musician, notably of Tenacious D.Jack Black may also refer to:* Jack Black , late 19th - early 20th Century author and hobo* Jack Black , drummer for 1970s UK punk band The Boys...
, a roadie who is transported to a fantasy world inspired by the artwork of heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
album covers. Eddie becomes the world's savior, leading the down-trodden humans against a range of supernatural overlords using a battle axe
Battle axe
A battle axe is an axe specifically designed for combat. Battle axes were specialized versions of utility axes...
, his Flying V
Gibson Flying V
-External links:*, , , , and , from the Gibson website*, a June 2001 article from Guitar Collector magazine*, a tribute site that lists all models and re-issues and most notable players**...
guitar that can tap into the magical powers of the world, and a customizable hot rod
Hot rod
Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another possible origin includes modifications to or...
.
The game, a hybrid of the action-adventure
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
and real-time strategy genres, includes Stage Battles in both the single-player and multiplayer mode, where the player must command troops to defeat their foes while defending their own stage. In addition to Black, the game features voices of heavy metal musicians including Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...
, Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
and Lita Ford
Lita Ford
Lita Ford is a British-born, American rock musician and singer who was the lead guitarist for The Runaways and achieved popularity for her solo career between the 1980s and late 2000s.-Early life:...
and other celebrities such as Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
, as well as more than one hundred metal songs selected by Schafer for inclusion in the game.
Brütal Legend was generally well-received by game reviewers, praising Schafer's vision and writing of the heavy metal-inspired world, and the performances of the voice cast, particularly Black and Osbourne. Many found the hybrid gameplay of action and real-time strategy games did not mix well, however, blaming console control limitations and missing features normally found in games of either genre.
Gameplay
Brütal Legend is a third person action/adventure game incorporating real time strategy elements. The game uses an open worldOpen world
An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives...
that Tim Schafer
Tim Schafer
Timothy Schafer is an American computer game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in January 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts...
has described as being approximately 40 square miles (103.6 km²) in area. The player controls the protagonist Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black
Jack Black
Jack Black , is an American actor and musician, notably of Tenacious D.Jack Black may also refer to:* Jack Black , late 19th - early 20th Century author and hobo* Jack Black , drummer for 1970s UK punk band The Boys...
), a roadie who one day finds himself transported into a fantasy heavy metal world. Eddie acquires three tools that are used for combat and transportation: a broad axe called "The Separator", his Flying V
Gibson Flying V
-External links:*, , , , and , from the Gibson website*, a June 2001 article from Guitar Collector magazine*, a tribute site that lists all models and re-issues and most notable players**...
guitar "Clementine" from his own world which has the ability to cast magic spells in the heavy metal world, and a hot rod
Hot rod
Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another possible origin includes modifications to or...
that Eddie builds called "The Druid Plow", a.k.a. "The Deuce". Launching magical attacks from Clementine is performed by playing a minigame
Minigame
A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...
akin to the note-matching aspect of Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
or Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
over a brief guitar riff; however, Eddie cannot use the magic generated by Clementine constantly, as prolonged usage of the guitar will result in it turning red hot, and the player will have to wait for a cool-off period before using the guitar's power again. The player can spend in-game currency called "Fire Tributes
Lighter
A lighter is a portable device used to generate a flame. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable fluid or pressurized liquid gas, a means of ignition, and some provision for extinguishing the flame.- History :...
", earned from completing missions, at the Motor Forge, to gain new abilities and upgrades for each tool. These tools can be used in combination with each other to take out Eddie's foes; for example, the player can use his guitar Clementine to create pyrotechnics
Pyrotechnics
Pyrotechnics is the science of using materials capable of undergoing self-contained and self-sustained exothermic chemical reactions for the production of heat, light, gas, smoke and/or sound...
to launch a foe into the air and follow up by attack it with the Separator ax. In a case of a specific boss fight
Boss (video games)
A boss is an enemy-based challenge which is found in video games. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight...
, the player must use the Deuce hot rod to lure the boss to a spiked gate held up by counterweights, and then play the "Earthshaker" move on Clementine to destroy the weights and sever the creature's head.
Within the open world, the player can use a map and the Deuce's turn signals to guide them towards either story-advancing missions or side missions. Side missions include hot-rod races against a demon, defending Eddie's allies from a pending attack, or helping a cannon operator spot his targets. There are about 23 main missions in the story with 30 side missions that the player can optionally take. The player can also explore the game's world to find statues bound in leather or chains that can be freed to gain a health boost for Eddie or to reveal part of the game's backstory, and can look through special telescopes at vistas or complete certain jumps to earn additional Fire Tributes. The player can also find monuments they can raise that unlock an additional heavy metal song from the game's soundtrack that can be played on the Deuce's radio, "The Mouth of Metal"; the player can further customize its set list with songs they have been rewarded with or have collected.
Several main story missions of the game are Stage Battles based on real time strategy elements. The player, while still in control of Eddie, is required to defend a giant stage where new allies will spawn, holding out until a specific objective is completed. The player creates an army for attacks by building merchandise booths on "fan geysers" through Clementine's magic. Once enough fans are collected, the player can summon different allies, each consuming a specific number of fans, or upgrade their stage to allow them to produce more powerful allies. A character known as Mangus acts as the "sound guy" to help in the construction of these units and stage upgrades, and also warns the player of enemy attacks. Once the player has gathered their army, they can then seek out and attack their opponents. Eddie is able to control the entire army to follow, attack, or defend a point, and can use specialized squads of specific units to perform certain tasks, such as having a group of headbangers
Headbanging
Headbanging is a type of dance which involves violently shaking the head in time with the music, most commonly in the rock and heavy metal music genres.-Origin:The term "headbanger" was coined during Led Zeppelin's first US tour in 1969...
use their headbanging to destroy statues. The player can also use Eddie directly in combat during this battles. Ultimately, Eddie transforms into a winged demon who can fly above the battlefields to issue orders or lay out attacks. Other spells in Eddie's arsenal can help control the performance of his armies, such as temporarily boosting their attack skills or creating a rally flag which troops will gather at. Each of the different units, including special allies that Eddie meets in the game, has a special co-op move they can perform with Eddie; for example, Eddie's first ally, Ophelia, can be tossed at foes by Eddie in the style of the Fastball Special
Fastball special
The Fastball Special is a popular tag-team move in superhero fiction. In a Fastball Special, a hero with superhuman strength literally throws a willing partner toward a target. The maneuver first appeared in the Marvel Comics series Uncanny X-Men #100, when Wolverine had Colossus hurl him in a...
. These co-op moves are also available outside of Stage Battle missions.
The game has a multiplayer mode, described by Schafer as "your typical head-to-head, battle of the bands scenario. But with axes." The multiplayer modes are team-based and play in the same manner as the single-player Stage Battles, with team sizes from one-versus-one to four-versus-four. Each team selects from one of three factions which affect what resources and troops they can summon, and are tasked with defending their stage from attack by the other team. The three factions available are Ironheade, mostly human-based troops led by Eddie Riggs; The Drowning Doom, with more Goth/Black Metal creatures led by Ophelia; and The Tainted Coil, evil creatures controlled by Doviculus. Each player controls a single main avatar who has the same abilities as in the main game for combat and magic spells and can also fly about the map, but also is in control of troops that they may summon from the team's shared resources—fans as generated by fan geysers across the map. Different types of troops are available, costing various amounts of fans to summon, with the potential to upgrade to improved units through different routes. The number and types of troops that can be summoned is limited by a cap to prevent either team from becoming too overpowered. All of the troops can be engaged by the player to initiate various "Double Team" moves as with the single player game. The game can also be played by a single player with computer-controller opponents at one of five difficulty levels.
Characters
Brütal Legend follows the story of Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black and named after Eddie the HeadEddie the Head
Eddie, also known as Eddie The Head, is the mascot for the British heavy metal band, Iron Maiden. He is a perennial fixture of the group's artwork, appearing in all of their record covers and in their merchandise, which includes t-shirts, posters and action figures...
, the mascot of Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...
, and Derek Riggs
Derek Riggs
Derek Riggs is a contemporary British artist best known for creating the heavy metal music band Iron Maiden's mascot, "Eddie the Head".-Career:...
, the artist who created Eddie), who is "the world's best roadie
Road crew
The road crew are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians...
" for "the world's worst 'heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
' band",. Much of the game takes place in an unnamed world inspired by heavy metal music, created by, according to the game's mythology, Ormagöden, The Eternal Firebeast, Cremator of the Sky, and Destroyer of the Ancient World. In this alternate world, the human race is enslaved by Doviculus, Emperor of the Tainted Coil, (voiced by Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
). Doviculus is assisted by his glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
human minion, General Lionwhyte (voiced by Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...
and based on David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
with the name being an allusion to glammetal band White Lion
White Lion
White Lion is an American/Danish hard rock/heavy metal band that was formed in New York City in 1983 by Danish vocalist Mike Tramp and American guitarist Vito Bratta. Mainly active in the 1980s and early 1990s, the band achieved double platinum status with their #8 hit "Wait" and #3 hit "When the...
) whose hair is so big "and luscious" that he uses it to fly, flapping it like a pair of broad wings. Leading the fight against Doviculus are a small band of human resistance fighters with whom Eddie joins forces: Lars Halford (voiced by Zach Hanks), his sister Lita (voiced by Kath Soucie
Kath Soucie
Katherine Elaine Soucie is an American voice actress. She is sometimes credited as Kath Soucie, Katherine Soucie, Kath Souci, Kath E...
), and Ophelia (voiced by Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-born American actress and singer best known for her voice over work in video games like Grandia II, the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tales of Symphonia, the Metroid Prime trilogy, the Metal Gear Solid games, Brütal Legend, and Disney's...
), whom Eddie takes a romantic interest in. Their group is later joined by the stage manager Mangus (Alex Fernandez
Alex Fernandez (actor)
Alex Fernandez is an American actor from Miami, Florida, known primarily for his work on television, most notably as National Security Advisor Anthony Prado on Commander in Chief and Rafael "Rafi" Alvarez on Without a Trace, as well as guest appearances on such series as House, The Closer,...
), the bass-playing healer Kill Master (voiced by, and patterned after Lemmy Kilmister), the motorcycle-riding Fire Baron (also voiced by Halford, as well as visually inspired by him too), and the Amazonian Rima (voiced by Lita Ford
Lita Ford
Lita Ford is a British-born, American rock musician and singer who was the lead guitarist for The Runaways and achieved popularity for her solo career between the 1980s and late 2000s.-Early life:...
and based on KISS
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
characters). Also supporting Eddie is the Guardian of Metal (voiced by Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
, who also lent his appearance to the character) that assists in upgrading his equipment.
Plot
During a gig for Kabbage Boy, Eddie is crushed by falling scenery while trying to save a member of the band; his blood lands on his belt buckle, in reality an amulet for Ormagöden. The stage is transformed into Ormagöden, who kills the band and takes the unconscious Eddie to the heavy metal world. Awaking in the Temple of Ormagöden, Eddie meets with Ophelia while fighting Doviculus' forces, developing a crush on her. They discover writings left by the Titans that Eddie is able to comprehend, and build a hot-rod, the "Deuce", that they use to escape the Temple and travel to Bladehenge, the base for the small human resistance force led by Lars and Lita. When they meet Eddie and learn he can understand the Titans' messages, they see him as a prophetical "Chosen One", though unsure if he will be the savior or destroyer of the world. Ophelia also becomes concerned when Eddie, in the heat of battle, transforms into a winged creature, an effect Eddie decides to use to his advantage at the time.Eddie helps Lars, Lita, and Ophelia create an army, named "Ironheade" to fight against General Lionwhyte. They successfully raid Lionwhyte's "Pleasure Tower" and defeat him. However, as they celebrate, Doviculus arrives, sending the group into hiding. Doviculus is aware of the presence of his spy "Succoria" by the smell of her blood as it was at the Temple; Eddie and his allies come to believe Ophelia is Doviculus' spy. Lars leaves his hiding spot to face Doviculus, but is quickly killed. As Doviculus causes the tower to tear itself apart, Ironheade escapes into the nearby mountains; Eddie is forced to leave with Lita leaving Ophelia behind despite their shared love. Heartbroken, Ophelia drowns herself in the Sea of Black Tears, and is transformed into the leader of the goth "Drowning Doom". After three months, she leads an attack on Ironheade's mountain camp. Though Ironheade defeats the assault, Eddie determines they must destroy the Sea to end her threat. As they travel through exotic lands and finding more allies out of the pyromanical Fire Barons and the amazonian Zaulia tribe, they come across evidence of Eddie's father, the hero known as Riggnarok in this time. It tells that Riggnarok traveled to the future to attempt to learn the secrets of the Titans to bring back to the past in the humans' ongoing fight against the demons, but never returned.
With their new allies, Ironheade manages to push the Drowning Doom back towards the Sea of Black Tears; defeated, Ophelia denies Eddie's belief that she is Doviculus' spy, again claiming that Eddie's the traitor. As they argue, Doviculus arrives and confirms that Succoria is not Ophelia, but Eddie's mother. In the past, Succoria, an even more vicious demon empress, also sought the Titans' secrets in the future, but discovering that humankind eventually prevailed, fell into despair. Riggnarok, who had followed Succoria through time to assassinate her, took pity on her in her despair, and the two fell in love and bore Eddie. Now in the past, Eddie's demon nature has borne out, and also has inadvertently revealed the Titans' secrets to Doviculus as well, and has allowed him to create a powerful army to overrun the humans. Having no more use for Ophelia, Doviculus rips out her heart, taking her powers alongside his own and causing Ophelia to dissipate. While Ironheade battles Doviculus' forces, Eddie engages Doviculus in a one-on-one confrontation, which ends with the demon emperor's decapitation. As Eddie escapes the Sea, he recovers Ophelia's heart from Doviculus, containing his mother's necklace he gave her when they first met, and then proceeds to rescue the real Ophelia from the ocean floor. Ashore, they rekindle their love as Ironheade celebrates their victory over Doviculus and the Tainted Coil. Back at Bladehenge, a statue to Lars is erected, while Lita continues to lead the troops against the remaining demons. Eddie insists on maintaining his "roadie" presence, staying behind the scenes and making others look good. After he promises he is not leaving to his assembled friends, Eddie takes off to complete a few errands, with Ophelia watching as he drives off into the sunset, shedding a single black tear.
Development
Creator Tim Schafer has said that he has been a heavy metal musicHeavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
fan since high school, and roadies have long fascinated him. As Schafer said in 2007, "The name was one of the very first things I thought of, over fifteen years ago. I was riding a bus, thinking about a game that would be the complete opposite of what we were working on, The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by the same company after its name was changed to LucasArts. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series...
[a Lucasfilm Games
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
title released in 1990]. And Brütal Legend leapt into my head. I've been hanging on to that name ever since." The title, which he describes as sounding "like the hardest core fantasy thing out there", makes use of the metal umlaut. The idea behind the game first came to Schafer about fifteen years prior to its release, but its core concepts did not completely come together until after the completion of Psychonauts
Psychonauts
Psychonauts is a platform video game created by Tim Schafer, developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Majesco. The game was released on April 19, 2005, for the Xbox, April 26 for Microsoft Windows and June 21 for PlayStation 2. It was released on Steam on Oct 11, 2006, as an "Xbox...
(2005), when he presented his idea for the game to the team, they became excited at the concept and decided to make that their next title.
Part of the game's inspiration came from the fantasy worlds that the lyrics and album covers of metal bands implied but rarely made it to music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s, thus allowing Brütal Legend to "fulfill the promise" of such lore. Schafer also credits a Megadeth
Megadeth
Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...
roadie named Tony he once met as having given him the idea to make a game about a roadie, with the character of Eddie Riggs becoming a re-imagined version of him. Schafer had previously explored the idea of a roadie sent back in time with the character of Hoagie from Day of the Tentacle
Day of the Tentacle
Day of the Tentacle, also known as Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle, is a 1993 graphic adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It is the sequel to the 1987 game Maniac Mansion...
, but Brütal Legend represented an opportunity to expand on it further. The 2003 movie School of Rock
School of Rock
School of Rock, also called The School of Rock, is a 2003 American musical comedy film directed by Richard Linklater, written by Mike White, and starring Jack Black...
also reminded Schafer of his idea for Brütal Legend, and made him more excited to publish it. Double Fine's philosophy on game development was also another reason for Brütal Legends creation, as Schafer has stated that his team attempts to make each game radically different from the company's previous release, contrasting Brütal Legend to Psychonauts. Schafer stated that the commercial tie-ins of Brütal Legend, such as "hot babes and Jack Black", is due to this philosophy and not due to market pressures. Schafer was not concerned about the commercial success of Brütal Legend, as despite poor sales of Psychonauts, "as long as you make a cool game, publishers want to talk to you". When Schafer was pitching the game before 2006, he received feedback about changing the game's style to hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
or country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. He credits Harmonix Music Systems
Harmonix Music Systems
Harmonix Music Systems is an American video game development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States...
for influencing the rhythm game
Rhythm game
Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press buttons in a sequence dictated on the screen...
market through the release of the widely successful Guitar Hero with a soundtrack that heavily emphasized metal music; with the popularity of Guitar Hero, the metal approach in Brütal Legend was readily accepted.
Schafer has pointed out that there are music term inspired attacks, such as a "Face-Melting" guitar solo, which literally will melt the foe's faces off. The metal/motorcyclist lifestyles and Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
also inspired the game's open-world environments, such as amps carved into the face of a mountain, a forest where tires replace leaves, giant axes and swords piercing the ground, spandex covered temples, and mining facilities where human slaves excavated car and motorcycle parts. However, Schafer noted that they attempted to make sure that non-metal fans would be able to get the jokes as well.
Art design
The art style for the game was based on the work of Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
and inspired by heavy metal and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
album cover
Album cover
An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...
s. The team only considered the addition of elements to the artwork if they felt it would be something that could be seen on such covers. The setting includes hot rod
Hot rod
Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another possible origin includes modifications to or...
-like engines that grow from the earth like a "V8 Truffle Of Speed", with design inspired by the designs of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth
Ed Roth
"Big Daddy" Ed Roth was an artist, cartoonist, custom car painter, and pinstriper who created the hot-rod icon Rat Fink and other extreme characters. As a custom car builder, Roth was a key figure in Southern California's Kustom Kulture and hot-rod movement of the late 50's and 1960's...
. The art team wanted to avoid creating "another brown-gray game", and strove to use the wide color palettes that are associated with heavy metal art. Cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s in the game use the game's engine, though some pre-recorded scenes from the engine have also been prepared with the help of Tasha Harris, a former Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
employee and who helped to animate character's faces during cutscenes.
The game features over 80 unique characters in addition to the main protagonist, Eddie Riggs. Initial designs for Riggs was modeled after Lemmy Kilmister, and though the model was changed, the signature vest, tour pass and cigarette of the character remained part of the character design. As the character continued to develop, they began to add more aspects of Black's character, an "enthusiastic fan" of music, from School of Rock. Ultimately, Riggs' design came to become half Jack Black and half Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig...
. The art team was able to use videos of Black's performances to add additional features to the character, such as "all his crazy eyebrow stuff he does". General Lionwhyte, who has "fabulous hair", and his minions are based on the glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
fad of the 1980s which displaced heavy metal to the disappointment of Schafer and other development team members, and became the opponents of the game. To help create a more mature game with concepts that could be used to pitch the game, the art team created several factions that represented different parts of the heavy metal experience. Each faction had their own "exaggerated, simplified shapes and strong silhouettes" as to help distinguish each faction while also reducing the development costs. Inspirations for such factions include Nordic imagery
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
, goth metal
Gothic metal
Gothic metal or goth metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that combines the aggression of doom metal with the dark melancholy of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music...
, and the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch. Additional characters include headbangers, "gravediggers", and "battle nuns". As the game features over two hours of spoken dialog, the art team wants to make the characters' faces and performances stand out, creating "clean, easy-to-read faces". The team had to change from their initial cartoony textures into more detailed ones that stood out on high-definition displays while exaggerating other features of the characters.
The user interface and menus were created by Joe Kowalski, who had previously worked on similar game elements for Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero II is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane. It is the second installment in the Guitar Hero series and is the sequel to Guitar Hero...
, and the Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
series. Much of the game's interface elements used a medieval woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
art style, and were designed to contrast well against the world's graphics. The introductory menu is presented as an interactive movie created from live action clips of Jack Black manipulating a prop gatefold
Gatefold
A gatefold is a type of fold used for advertising around a magazine or section, and for packaging of media such as vinyl records.- LP covers :...
vinyl record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
album, using Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a digital motion graphics and compositing software published by Adobe Systems, used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. Its main uses are the origination of 2D and 2.5D animation, visual effects compositing and finishing...
to provide the on-screen text, controls handling, and stitching of separate scenes into a seamless movie.
Characters and voice acting
Brütal Legend includes over 35,000 lines of spoken dialog, mostly written by Schafer. In addition to Black, Lemmy, Judas PriestJudas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
's Rob Halford, The Runaways
The Runaways
The Runaways were an American all-girl rock band that recorded and performed in the second half of the 1970s. The band released four studio albums and one live set during its run. Among its best known songs: "Cherry Bomb", "Queens of Noise", "Neon Angels On the Road to Ruin", "California Paradise"...
' Lita Ford, and Ozzy Osbourne provide character voices for these lines. Though Eddie came to resemble Black, the team had not planned on having Jack Black voice the character. After learning that Black was a fan of Schafer's previous game, Psychonauts, they met with the actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
/musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and recognized he was an avid gamer
Gamer
Historically, the term "gamer" usually referred to someone who played role-playing games and wargames. Since they became very popular, the term has included players of video games...
and metal fan and understood all the choices the team made in the game, and subsequently signed on for the voice work
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
. Black also performed live-action sequences as himself used for the in-game menu screens and additional promotional material. Lemmy was brought on board to play The Killmaster after Schafer and his team had developed the character's role in the story who assists Eddie by healing his allies through a giant bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
harp on the back of a chopper
Chopper (motorcycle)
A chopper is a type of motorcycle that was either modified from an original motorcycle design or built from scratch to have a hand-crafted appearance. The main features of a chopper that make it stand out are its longer frame design accompanied by a stretch front end...
. The original character, a man with a top hat and beard, was considered out of place by Schafer, leading him to consider famous bass guitar players and quickly recognizing the need to have Lemmy play that role. Halford plays two characters, General Lionwhyte and The Baron. Schafer had selected Lionwhyte to capture Halford's ability to scream, and found his abilities in the studio beyond what they expected. They created The Baron character specifically for Halford, as while Lionwhyte was considered a "heavy metal Stewie
Stewie Griffin
Stewie Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. Once obsessed with world domination and matricide, Stewie is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin, and the brother of Chris and Meg....
[from Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
]", that character was the complete opposite of Halford, while The Baron captures both Halford and Judas Priest's attitude. Ford voices Rima, queen of a group of "Amazon-like jungle women"; Schafer considered the similarities between the lack of clothing that Rima was designed with and Ford's outfits from the 1980s, staying true to the development teams' memories of her. Osbourne plays The Guardian of Metal who helps the player upgrade their equipment; Schafer commented that both the character and Osbourne, while dark and brooding, are "really upbeat" and "optimistic".
Ronnie James Dio
Ronald James Padavona , better known as Ronnie James Dio, was an American heavy metal vocalist and songwriter. He performed with, amongst others, Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, and his own band Dio, which means God in Italian. Other musical projects include the collective fundraiser...
of the band Dio
Dio (band)
Dio was an American heavy metal band from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Formed in 1982 and led by vocalist Ronnie James Dio, after he left Black Sabbath with intentions to form a new band with fellow former Black Sabbath member, drummer Vinny Appice. Naming the band Dio made sense from a commercial...
had performed parts for the game, his role was replaced with voice work from Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
. While the change was speculated to be due to tense issues between Osbourne and Dio, Schafer noted that as Dio's intended character, "Doviculus, Emperor of the Tainted Coil", grew, they found that Curry fit the role better for the part, citing Curry's role of the Lord of Darkness in the film Legend
Legend (film)
Legend is a 1985 fantasy film released by Universal Pictures, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, and Tim Curry. Though not a very notable success when first released, it received a single Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup, and since its initial release, has developed...
as a key factor. Curry considered the role "perfect" for him when Schafer described Doviculus to him as "big and tough, but also has this kinky side who, when hit with an ax, might scream in pain or squeal with delight".
Similar to their experience with bringing Black onto the project, obtaining the voicework of the metal artists were also unexpected but beneficial. This led to some confusion during voice recording sessions; both Lita Ford and Rob Halford had difficulties with lines involving a character named "Lita Halford". Furthermore, both Black and Osbourne frequently injected profanity
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
into their scripted lines during recording sessions. Instead of rerecording these, the development left these in the game, but included the option for a profanity content filter to be enabled by the player to "bleep" out these words and mask such word on screen using the Parents Music Resource Center
Parents Music Resource Center
The Parents Music Resource Center was an American committee formed in 1985 with the goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to be violent, have drug use or be sexual.The committee was founded by four women: Tipper Gore, wife of Senator and later Vice...
"Parental Advisory
Parental Advisory
Parental Advisory is a message affixed by the Recording Industry Association of America to audio and recordings in the United States containing excessive use of profane language and/or sexual references. Albums began to be labeled for "explicit lyrics" in 1985, after pressure from the Parents...
" label, an icon that Schafer considered to be part of the history of heavy metal. A similar filter exists for gore
Graphic violence
Graphic violence is the depiction of especially vivid, brutal and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as literature, film, television, and video games...
in the game, preventing any dismemberment and disabling blood in the game. Schafer stated the filters were added to the game in consideration of older players that may not wish to see such aspects, or for parents who opt to play the game with younger children. During development, Schafer stated that while he could not confirm what other musicians and bands would be in the game, there would be more than already stated, and that these musicians were "especially conducive to character creation" due to the amount of theatrics used in their concert shows.
Kyle Gass
Kyle Gass
Kyle Richard Gass , also known as KG or Kage, is an American rock musician, singer-songwriter and actor. He is a member of the bands Tenacious D and Trainwreck. In Tenacious D , Gass plays lead guitar and sings backup vocals, and also plays the role of Black's comic foil in most of their comedy...
, Black's collaborator with Tenacious D
Tenacious D
Tenacious D is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. Composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack Black and lead guitarist and vocalist Kyle Gass, the band has released two albums – Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny...
, voices and lends his facial likeness to a neurotic cannon operator in the game. Comedians David Cross
David Cross
David Cross is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian perhaps best known for his work on HBO's sketch comedy series Mr...
, Steve Agee
Steve Agee
Steve Agee is an American actor and comedian, best known for his supporting role as Steve Myron on the Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program....
, Brian Posehn
Brian Posehn
Brian Edmund Posehn is an American actor, voice actor, musician and comedian, known for his roles as mail clerk Kevin Liotta on NBC's Just Shoot Me!, a cast member and writer on HBO's Mr. Show, and most recently as Brian Spukowski on Comedy Central's The Sarah Silverman Program.-Early life:Posehn...
, and Wil Wheaton
Wil Wheaton
Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers...
have also provided voice work for the game; Posehn had previously worked with Schafer on their high school newspaper. David Sobolov
David Sobolov
David Sobolov is a Canadian voice actor. David began his creative career as a french horn player in pit orchestras and small ensembles, then studied acting in New York with the legendary Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse...
was also confirmed as a voice actor for other roles in the game; Sobolov noted that he recorded his lines separate from Black's despite his characters' having direct interaction with Riggs. Richard Horvitz, who voiced protagonist Raz in Schafer's previous game, Psychonauts, cameos as the lead guitarist of Kabbage Boy and as a car-lift operator that assigns Eddie certain side missions. Further voice acting work has been provided by veteran video game actors such as Zach Hanks, Kath Soucie
Kath Soucie
Katherine Elaine Soucie is an American voice actress. She is sometimes credited as Kath Soucie, Katherine Soucie, Kath Souci, Kath E...
, Dino Andrade
Dino Andrade
Dino Andrade is an American veteran voice actor in video games and animated projects. He manages dual careers as both a voice actor and the Creator/Owner Operator of the geek dating/community website .-Early life:...
and Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-born American actress and singer best known for her voice over work in video games like Grandia II, the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tales of Symphonia, the Metroid Prime trilogy, the Metal Gear Solid games, Brütal Legend, and Disney's...
.
Soundtrack
Brütal Legend features 107 heavy metal tracks from 75 different bands, selected by Schafer and Music Director Emily Ridgway as listed below, each song being a "completely sincere choice" by Schafer and Ridgway, with the whole track list being "designed to be loved by Metal fans." Schafer sought to include songs from most main sub-genres of metal, including classic heavy metalHeavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, industrial metal
Industrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
, black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
, and doom metal
Doom metal
Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...
, with each faction in the game favoring a specific type. Though Schafer and others on the Double Fine team had vast knowledge of specific types of metal, Ridgway turned to a used-CD store owner named Allan from Aquarius Records
Aquarius Records (store)
Aquarius Records is an independent record store and the oldest record store of any sort in San Francisco, California, established in 1970. Aquarius is known for carrying an obscure selection of psychedelia, metal, and world music, and has an extensive mail order catalog. The store's selection is...
who had "encyclopedic knowledge" of the entire genre, and who provided the team with sample CDs to help them discover some of the more obscure metal bands. Schafer also credits Black with some of the music selections for the game. Instead of relying on labels or bands to provide them with a list of possible songs to select from, the development team sought permission to use specific songs they wanted in the game. In some cases, obtaining appropriate licensing proved difficult, as for songs from bands that had long split up, Double Fine needed to contact each band member to gain permission. This proved to be valuable, as some original bands were excited about their music being used in the game; in one case, Lita Ford was able to provide the game with a song with slight modifications to the lyrics from a version that she was about to release. One song is from the in-game band "Kabbage Boy" for which Eddie is a roadie at the start of the game.
In addition to licensed music, the game includes over 70 minutes of original score by Tim Schafer's long term collaborator Peter McConnell
Peter McConnell
Peter N. McConnell , also known as Peter Mc, is an American video game music composer who worked for LucasArts for nearly ten years. He studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 80s under Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo and Ivan Tcherepnin...
. McConnell composed pieces for orchestra and Metal band to tie in with the licensed music in the game. Also, the in-game soundtrack contains an instrumental drum track played by Slough Feg drummer Harry Cantwell, and the solos triggered by the player during the game were composed and recorded by Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
guitarists Glenn Tipton
Glenn Tipton
Glenn Tipton is one of the Grammy Award-winning guitarists for the heavy metal band Judas Priest...
(Eddie's solos) and K.K. Downing (Ophelia's and Doviculus' solos).
While Schafer would like to have a soundtrack album for the game, he stated that there were already difficulties in securing the licenses for songs within the game and was not sure if it would be possible to extend them to a soundtrack. Schafer helped to select three songs—"We Are The Road Crew" by Motorhead, "The Metal" by Tenacious D, and "More Than Meets The Eye" by Testament—to appear in a pack of Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
downloadable songs
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
that was made available the same day as Brütal Legends release.
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| "A Serpentine Crave" | Bishop of Hexen |
| "Ad Noctis" | Rotting Christ Rotting Christ Rotting Christ is a Greek black metal band formed in 1987. They are noted for being one of the first black metal bands within this region, as well as a premier act within the European underground metal scene.- Line-up :... |
| "Am I Evil? Am I Evil? The song was made most famous by Metallica's cover of the song, found on the 1988 re-release and the Japanese version of its debut album Kill 'Em All , though the cover was originally released as a b-side to the "Creeping Death" single in 1984, and was later released on Garage Inc. in 1998... " |
Diamond Head Diamond Head (band) Diamond Head are an English heavy metal band formed in 1976 in Stourbridge, England. The band is recognised as one of the leading members of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and is acknowledged by later bands like Metallica and Megadeth as an important early influence.-Early history:Formed by... |
| "Angel Witch" | Angel Witch Angel Witch Angel Witch is a British heavy metal band which formed in London, England in 1977 as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement.-Biography:... |
| "Angels Don't Kill" | Children of Bodom Children of Bodom Children of Bodom is a Finnish heavy metal band from Espoo. Formed in 1993, the group currently consists of Alexi Laiho , Roope Latvala , Janne Wirman , Henkka Seppälä , and Jaska Raatikainen... |
| "Assault Attack" | Michael Schenker Group Michael Schenker Group The Michael Schenker Group is a guitar-oriented hard rock band formed in 1979 by former Scorpions and UFO guitarist, Michael Schenker. In 1986, Schenker and vocalist Robin McAuley formed the McAuley Schenker Group, which lasted until 1992. After that, the Michael Schenker Group was reformed.The... |
| "Back at the Funny Farm" | Motörhead |
| "Battle Angels" | Sanctuary Sanctuary (band) Sanctuary is an American heavy metal band founded in Seattle in 1985. The band consisted of Warrel Dane , Lenny Rutledge , Sean Blosl, Jim Sheppard , Dave Budbill , and in the end Jeff Loomis.-History:... |
| "Battle Hymn/One Shot at Glory" | Judas Priest Judas Priest Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,... |
| "Believer" | Ozzy Osbourne Ozzy Osbourne John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal... |
| "Betrayal" | Lita Ford Lita Ford Lita Ford is a British-born, American rock musician and singer who was the lead guitarist for The Runaways and achieved popularity for her solo career between the 1980s and late 2000s.-Early life:... |
| "Birth of the Hero" | Tvangeste Tvangeste Tvangeste is a symphonic black metal band from Russia .- Biography :* 1995 — Michael Chirva starts seeking members through advertisiments in local newspaper* 1997 — The band is officially born... |
| "Blackout" | Scorpions Scorpions (band) Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still... |
| "Blitzkrieg" | Deathstars Deathstars Deathstars is a Swedish band from Stockholm that perform industrial and gothic metal. Formed in 2000, the group are noted for their dark horror-themed lyrics, pessimistic and misanthropic social commentary, distinctive trademark face paint, dark stage uniforms and physical appearances that... |
| "Bomber Bomber (song) "Bomber" is a song by the English heavy metal band Motörhead, recorded and released in 1979 . It is the title track to their album Bomber and was released as a single peaking at 34 on the UK singles chart.... " |
Girlschool Girlschool Girlschool are a British heavy metal band originating out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene in 1978 and frequently associated with contemporaries Motörhead. They are the longest running all-female rock band, still active after more than 30 years... |
| "Breadfan Breadfan "Breadfan" is a heavy metal song originally recorded by Budgie, appearing on their 1973 album Never Turn Your Back on a Friend. The title refers to having a love of money, bread being slang for money. It was also featured in the video game Brütal Legend.... " |
Budgie Budgie (band) Budgie is a Welsh Hard Rock/Heavy Metal band from Cardiff. They are widely considered as one of the first heavy metal bands and a seminal influence to many acts of that scene, with fast, heavy rock being played as early as 1971. The band has been noted as "among the heaviest metal of its day"... |
| "Cathode Ray Sunshine" | Dark Tranquillity Dark Tranquillity Dark Tranquillity is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Gothenburg. They are one of the longest-standing bands from the original Gothenburg metal scene, and are one of the most integral pioneers of the melodic death metal genre of music.... |
| "Children of the Grave" | Black Sabbath Black Sabbath Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22... |
| "Crack the Skye (Instrumental)" | Mastodon Mastodon (band) Mastodon is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 1999. The band is composed of bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor... |
| "Cremation Cremation Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation.... " |
King Diamond King Diamond Kim Bendix Petersen , better known by his stage name King Diamond, is a Grammy Award nominated Danish heavy metal musician. As a vocalist, he is known for his extensive vocal range, in particular his usage of falsetto. He is the lead vocalist for both Mercyful Fate and the eponymous King Diamond... |
| "Cry of the Banshee" | Brocas Helm Brocas Helm Brocas Helm is a heavy metal band from San Francisco, California, founded in 1982. They split up at XIV Keep It True Festival on April 30, 2011.-History:... |
| "Dawn of Battle Dawn of Battle Dawn of Battle is a three song EP released in 2002 on the Nuclear Blast label by heavy metal band Manowar.This peculiar disc is a CD on one side and a DVD on the other side; the outer region of each side is painted black like a regular CD or DVD back side.The EP also contains some video material... " |
Manowar |
| "Deadly Sinners" | 3 Inches of Blood 3 Inches of Blood 3 Inches of Blood is a Canadian heavy metal band formed in 2000 in Vancouver, British Columbia, currently consisting of Cam Pipes, Justin Hagberg, Shane Clark, and Ash Pearson... |
| "Destroy the Orcs Destroy the Orcs "Destroy the Orcs" is the second single by Canadian power metal band 3 Inches of Blood. It was inspired by the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, and is also about revenge. The single was released on October 27, 2003 by Megarock Records. "The Sun Rises Over the Fjords" and "Conquerors of the Northern... " |
3 Inches of Blood 3 Inches of Blood 3 Inches of Blood is a Canadian heavy metal band formed in 2000 in Vancouver, British Columbia, currently consisting of Cam Pipes, Justin Hagberg, Shane Clark, and Ash Pearson... |
| "Diary of a Madman Diary of a Madman (song) "Diary of a Madman" is a heavy metal song by Ozzy Osbourne released in 1981 on his Diary of a Madman album. The majority of the song is in the uncommon time signature of 7/8 time throughout the verses.... " |
Ozzy Osbourne Ozzy Osbourne John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal... |
| "Die For Metal" | Manowar |
| "Dr. Feelgood Dr. Feelgood (song) "Dr. Feelgood" is a song by the American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. It was released as the first single and is the title track to their fifth album. Although it is the title track, some versions of the album do not include it, such as the Korean edition... " |
Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil... |
| "Drink the Blood of the Priest" | Brocas Helm Brocas Helm Brocas Helm is a heavy metal band from San Francisco, California, founded in 1982. They split up at XIV Keep It True Festival on April 30, 2011.-History:... |
| "Fast as a Shark Fast as a Shark "Fast as a Shark" is a well-known song by the German heavy metal band Accept from their 1982 album Restless and Wild.Its blazingly fast double bass drumming is recognized today as reaching a new level in the development of the subgenre of speed and thrash metal... " |
Accept Accept Accept is a German heavy metal band from the town of Solingen, originally assembled by former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s... |
| "For the Glory Of..." | Testament Testament (band) Testament is an American metal band from Berkeley, California, formed in 1983. They are often credited as one of the most popular bands of the 1980s thrash metal scene... |
| "Free Your Hate" | KMFDM KMFDM KMFDM is an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko, who founded the group in 1984 as a performance art project... |
| "Frost" | Enslaved Enslaved (band) Enslaved is a progressive black metal band formed in June 1991 in Sveio, Norway, and currently based out of Bergen, Norway.-History:Enslaved was formed in June 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson when they were 13 and 17 years old, respectively. The band name was inspired by an Immortal demo... |
| "Girlfriend" | Kabbage Boy |
| "God of Thunder God of Thunder (song) "God of Thunder" is a heavy metal song by the group Kiss from their album Destroyer. The song has also been featured on many of Kiss's live albums, including an up-tempo version on Alive II. Many various sound effects were used to make the song including explosions, clapping, zippers, overdubbed... " |
Kiss KISS (band) Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,... |
| "Goliaths Disarm Their Davids" | In Flames In Flames In Flames is a Swedish heavy metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. Since the band's inception in 1993, they have released ten studio albums and one live DVD... |
| "Hall of the Mountain King" | Savatage Savatage Savatage is an American heavy metal band founded by the brothers Jon and Criss Oliva in 1978 at Astro Skate in Tarpon Springs, Florida.-Early days :... |
| "Her Ghost in the Fog" | Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth are an English extreme metal band, formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic black metal, and other extreme metal styles, while their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily... |
| "High Speed Dirt" | Megadeth Megadeth Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two... |
| "Holiday Lovedrive Lovedrive is the sixth studio album by the German heavy metal band Scorpions, released in 1979. Lovedrive was a major evolution of the band's sound, which exhibited their "classic style" that would be later developed over their next few albums. Michael Schenker, younger brother of rhythm guitarist... " |
Scorpions Scorpions (band) Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still... |
| "Igniisis Dance" | Wrath of Killenstein |
| "In the Black" | Motörhead |
| "Insomnia" | Dark Fortress Dark Fortress Dark Fortress is a black metal band from Landshut, Germany, formed in 1994. They have released six studio albums, a split album and a demo album.-Early:... |
| "Kickstart My Heart Kickstart My Heart "Kickstart My Heart" is a Grammy Award-nominated song by the American rock band Mötley Crüe, originally released on their 1989 album, Dr. Feelgood. The song has also been used numerous in media, including the trailers for Robert Rodriguez's family comedy Shorts and the Disney/Pixar film Cars... " |
Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil... |
| "Lay It Down" | Ratt Ratt Ratt is an American heavy metal band that had significant commercial success in the 1980s. The band is best known for songs such as "Round and Round," "Wanted Man," "Lay It Down," "You're in Love", "Slip of the Lip", "Back For More", "Dance", "Body Talk", "I Want a Woman", and "Way Cool Jr." Ratt... |
| "Leather Rebel" | Judas Priest Judas Priest Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,... |
| "Live Wire Live Wire (Mötley Crüe song) "Live Wire" is the debut single by the American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe released from their 1982 debut album Too Fast for Love. The video was directed by the members of Mötley Crüe themselves, showcasing the bands exotic stage theatrics, such as Nikki Sixx setting himself on fire and Mick... " |
Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil... |
| "Loke" | Enslaved Enslaved (band) Enslaved is a progressive black metal band formed in June 1991 in Sveio, Norway, and currently based out of Bergen, Norway.-History:Enslaved was formed in June 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson when they were 13 and 17 years old, respectively. The band name was inspired by an Immortal demo... |
| "Love Dump" | Static-X Static-X Static-X is an American industrial metal band from Los Angeles, California. They were formed in 1994. They are signed to Warner Bros. Records and have released six albums, their most recent being Cult of Static, which was released on March 17, 2009.... |
| "Machine Gunn Eddie" | Nitro Nitro (band) Nitro was an American glam metal band that formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California in 1987. Formed by vocalist Jim Gillette and guitarist Michael Angelo Batio, the band released two studio albums – O.F.R. and Nitro II: H.W.D.W.S. .-History:Nitro was officially formed in 1987 after the... |
| "March of the Crabs" | Anvil Anvil (band) Anvil is a Canadian heavy metal band comprising Steve "Lips" Kudlow , Robb Reiner , and Glenn Five... |
| "Marching Off to War" | Motörhead |
| "Master Exploder" | Tenacious D Tenacious D Tenacious D is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. Composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack Black and lead guitarist and vocalist Kyle Gass, the band has released two albums – Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny... |
| "Murmaider" | Dethklok Dethklok Dethklok is both a virtual band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, as well as a real band created to perform the band's melodic death metal music in live shows. The band was created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha. The music heard on Metalocalypse is performed by Brendon... |
| "Metal Church" | Metal Church Metal Church Metal Church was an American heavy metal band. They originally formed in Seattle, Washington as Shrapnel in 1980. Their first album was released in 1984, and the band's most recent work, This Present Wasteland, was released in 2008.... |
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| "Metal Storm/Face the Slayer" | Slayer Slayer Slayer is an American thrash metal band formed in Huntington Park, California, in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, and is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal acts, along with Metallica, Megadeth and... |
| "Metal Thrashing Mad" | Anthrax Anthrax (band) Anthrax is an American heavy metal band from New York City, formed in 1981. Founded by guitarists Scott Ian and Danny Lilker, the band has since released ten studio albums and 20 singles, and an EP featuring Public Enemy. The band was one of the most popular of the 1980s thrash metal scene... |
| "More Than Meets the Eye" | Testament Testament (band) Testament is an American metal band from Berkeley, California, formed in 1983. They are often credited as one of the most popular bands of the 1980s thrash metal scene... |
| "Mr. Crowley Mr. Crowley "Mr Crowley" is a 1980 heavy metal song performed by Ozzy Osbourne, released on the album Blizzard of Ozz, Osbourne's first solo effort following his firing from Black Sabbath. It peaked at number 46 on the United Kingdom charts. Musicians playing on the song are guitarist Randy Rhoads, bass... " |
Ozzy Osbourne Ozzy Osbourne John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal... |
| "Mr. Scary" | Dokken Dokken Dokken is an American heavy metal and hard rock band formed in 1978. They split up in 1989 but reformed four years later. The group accumulated numerous charting singles and has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide... |
| "Narita" | Riot Riot (band) Riot is an American heavy metal band founded in New York City in 1975 by guitarist Mark Reale. Reaching a peak in popularity in the early 80s, the band has continued a long-running successful career.... |
| "Never Say Die" | Black Sabbath Black Sabbath Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22... |
| "Nightstalker" | Cloven Hoof Cloven Hoof (band) Cloven Hoof are a heavy metal band from Wolverhampton that was active from 1979 to 1990, and again from around 2000 onwards. The band were associated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, alongside bands such as Iron Maiden and Diamond Head... |
| "No Love Lost" | Carcass Carcass (band) Carcass are an extreme metal band from England, who formed in 1985 and disbanded in 1995. A reunion was enacted in 2008 without one of its original members, drummer Ken Owen, due to health reasons.... |
| "Oblivion (Instrumental)" | Mastodon Mastodon (band) Mastodon is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 1999. The band is composed of bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor... |
| "Overnight Sensation" | FireHouse |
| "Painkiller" | Judas Priest Judas Priest Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,... |
| "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse Progenies of the Great Apocalypse "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" is a song by the Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir. It served as their debut single on the album Death Cult Armageddon... " |
Dimmu Borgir Dimmu Borgir Dimmu Borgir is a Norwegian black metal band from Oslo, Norway, formed in 1993. Dimmu borgir means "dark cities" or "dark castles/fortresses" in Icelandic, Faroese and Old Norse. The name is derived from a volcanic formation in Iceland, Dimmuborgir... |
| "Pure Evil" | Iced Earth Iced Earth Iced Earth is an American heavy metal band from Tampa, Florida. Originally formed under the name "Purgatory" in 1984, Iced Earth has released a total of ten studio albums, one live album, three EP's, two compilations and boxsets... |
| "Queen of Desire" | Ostrogoth |
| "Queen of the Masquerade" | Crimson Glory Crimson Glory Crimson Glory is an American progressive metal band that formed in 1982. They broke up in 1992, but decided to reform six years later.-Formation and debut album :... |
| "Riding the Storm" | Running Wild Running Wild (band) Running Wild is a German heavy metal band, formed in 1976 in Hamburg. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid 1980s. The band has carved its niche in the metal world as the first "pirate metal" band, a theme which took off with the release of Under... |
| "Rip the System" | KMFDM KMFDM KMFDM is an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko, who founded the group in 1984 as a performance art project... |
| "Road Racin" | Riot Riot (band) Riot is an American heavy metal band founded in New York City in 1975 by guitarist Mark Reale. Reaching a peak in popularity in the early 80s, the band has continued a long-running successful career.... |
| "Rock Bottom" | UFO UFO (band) UFO are an English heavy metal and hard rock band, who were formed in 1969. UFO became a transitional group between early hard rock and heavy metal and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal... |
| "Rock of Ages Rock of Ages (Def Leppard song) "Rock of Ages" is a song by Def Leppard from their 1983 album Pyromania. It takes its name from the hymn Rock of Ages. When released as a single in the United States, the song reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number one on the Top Tracks rock chart.It begins with a German-like... " |
Def Leppard Def Leppard Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell... |
| "Skeleton on Your Shoulder" | Coroner Coroner (band) Coroner is a Swiss thrash metal/progressive metal band from Zurich. They garnered relatively little attention outside of Europe. Formed in 1983, the band broke up in 1996, but decided to reform 14 years later. The band will perform at multiple live venues and festivals around the world in 2011,... |
| "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" | Prong |
| "So Frail" | Mirrorthrone Mirrorthrone Mirrorthrone is a one-man avant-garde metal band formed by Vladimir Cochet in 2000.-Biography:Mirrorthrone came into being in 2000 when it was created by Vladimir Cochet, the only member of the one man project. In late 2001 and 2002, two demo CD's were recorded, which drew the attention of Red... |
| "Soul Thrashing Black Sorcery" | Skeletonwitch Skeletonwitch Skeletonwitch is an American heavy metal band from Athens, Ohio formed in 2003. The band currently consists of drummer Dustin Boltjes, vocalist Chance Garnette, bassist Evan Linger, and guitarists Nate Garnette and Scott Hedrick... |
| "Stigmata Stigmata (song) "Stigmata" is a song by industrial metal band Ministry, released as a single from their 1988 album The Land of Rape and Honey. The song was an underground hit... " |
Ministry Ministry (band) Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to... |
| "Still of the Night Still of the Night (song) "Still of the Night" is a single released by Whitesnake, from their hugely successful self titled 1987 album. It reached #16 in the U.K., #18 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks and #79 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released on March 9, 1987... " |
Whitesnake Whitesnake Whitesnake are an English rock band, founded in 1978 by David Coverdale after his departure from his previous band, Deep Purple. The band's early material has been compared by critics to Deep Purple, but by the mid 1980s they had moved to a more commercial hard rock style... |
| "Sulphur Injection" | Apostasy Apostasy (band) -History:The original lineup from 2000 consisted of Håkan Björklund and Mathias Edin of Kramfors, Sweden. They recruited Mattias' brother Fredric Edin on vocals and bass, and Lars Engström on guitar... |
| "Superbeast Superbeast "Superbeast" is a promotional single off Rob Zombie's solo debut, Hellbilly Deluxe. The song was co-written by Charlie Clouser, formerly of Nine Inch Nails. It also appears on Rob Zombie's Past, Present & Future, the greatest hits album The Best of Rob Zombie, and two remixes are contained on... " |
Rob Zombie Rob Zombie Rob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the... |
| "Swords and Tequila" | Riot Riot (band) Riot is an American heavy metal band founded in New York City in 1975 by guitarist Mark Reale. Reaching a peak in popularity in the early 80s, the band has continued a long-running successful career.... |
| "Symptom of the Universe Symptom of the Universe (song) "Symptom of the Universe" is a song by the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, originally from their album Sabotage.The song is divided into two parts, a heavier part and an acoustic portion at the end of the song... " |
Black Sabbath Black Sabbath Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22... |
| "Tag Team" | Anvil Anvil (band) Anvil is a Canadian heavy metal band comprising Steve "Lips" Kudlow , Robb Reiner , and Glenn Five... |
| "Technical Difficulties" | Racer X |
| "The Axeman" | Omen Omen (band) Omen is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1983, by lead guitarist Kenny Powell, previously with the band Savage Grace and signed on with Metal Blade in 1984, with whom they released their debut Battle Cry .In 1985... |
| "The Beautiful People" | Marilyn Manson Marilyn Manson (band) Marilyn Manson is an American metal band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Formed in 1989 by Brian Warner and Scott Putesky, the group was originally named Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids with their uniquely theatrical performances gathering a local cult following in the early '90s. This attention... |
| "The Hellion/Electric Eye Electric Eye (song) "Electric Eye" is a song by British heavy metal band Judas Priest, from their 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance, and released as a single later that year... " |
Judas Priest Judas Priest Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,... |
| "The Metal The Metal "The Metal" is a song by Tenacious D from their 2006 album The Pick of Destiny. The album was a soundtrack for the film. The song is played during the end credits of the film and is the final track on the album.... " |
Tenacious D Tenacious D Tenacious D is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. Composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack Black and lead guitarist and vocalist Kyle Gass, the band has released two albums – Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny... |
| "The Somber Grounds of Truth" | Bishop of Hexen |
| "The Wild and the Young" | Quiet Riot Quiet Riot Quiet Riot is an American Heavy Metal band. They are best known for their hit singles "Metal Health" and "Cum On Feel the Noize". They were founded in 1973 by guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Kelly Garni, under the original name Mach 1, before changing the name to Little Women and finally Quiet... |
| "Thieves" | Ministry Ministry (band) Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to... |
| "Through the Fire and Flames Through the Fire and Flames "Through the Fire and Flames" is a song by English power metal band DragonForce. The song is acclaimed as the most successful song by the band. The song is a single as well as the opening track from DragonForce's third album, Inhuman Rampage, and features rapid twin guitar solos by Herman Li and... " |
DragonForce DragonForce DragonForce are an English power metal band from London. Formed in 1999, the group is known for its long and fast guitar solos, fantasy-based lyrics, and electronic sounds in their music to add to their retro video game-influenced sound. Guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman are the only two... |
| "Thus Spake the Nightspirit" | Emperor Emperor (band) Emperor was a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1991. They dissolved in 2001, but reunited in 2006 and again in 2007 for a few festival dates and brief US tours. The group was founded by Samoth and Ihsahn .-Biography:... |
| "Tornado of Souls" | Megadeth Megadeth Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two... |
| "Warriors Dawn" | Slough Feg |
| "(We Are) the Road Crew" | Motörhead |
| "Welcome Home" | King Diamond King Diamond (band) King Diamond is the heavy metal band that King Diamond formed after the split up of his heavy metal band Mercyful Fate, and the departure of Hank Shermann. He was joined by most members of the then defunct Mercyful Fate. The Satanic focus was replaced by a focus on horror stories... |
| "Wheels of Steel" | Saxon Saxon (band) Saxon are an English heavy metal band, formed in 1976 in Barnsley, Yorkshire. As front-runners of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, they had 8 UK Top 40 albums in the 1980s including 4 UK Top 10 albums. Saxon also had numerous singles in the Top 20 singles chart... |
| "When the Night Falls" | Iced Earth Iced Earth Iced Earth is an American heavy metal band from Tampa, Florida. Originally formed under the name "Purgatory" in 1984, Iced Earth has released a total of ten studio albums, one live album, three EP's, two compilations and boxsets... |
| "Witches" | Candlemass Candlemass Candlemass are an influential Swedish doom metal band established in 1984 by Leif Edling , their leader and songwriter. The band is originally from Stockholm. After releasing five full-length albums and touring extensively throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Candlemass disbanded in 1994, but... |
| "World of Hurt" | Overkill Overkill (band) Overkill is an American thrash metal band, formed in 1980 in New Jersey. They have gone through many line-up changes, with singer Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth and bassist D.D. Verni remaining from the original lineup. Along with Anthrax , the band is one of the most successful East Coast thrash metal... |
| "Y.R.O." | Racer X |
| "Youth Gone Wild Youth Gone Wild "Youth Gone Wild" is the debut single by Skid Row and the lead single from their 1989 eponymous debut album.Its music video received heavy airplay on MTV; however, while the album itself was a major hit and went multi-platinum in the U.S... " |
Skid Row |
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The track is merged with the song "More Than Meets the Eye".
Development history
According to Schafer, Brütal Legend has been in development since 2005, prior to the completion of Psychonauts. Schafer noted that in Psychonauts, they attempted to bring together a lot of assets, including characters and environments, but were not able to successfully integrate them on their first attempt and had to start over on the development of some. In several cases for Psychonauts, changes made in gameplay required them to return and redesign levels to account for the new features. The company decided at the start to use the scrum development approachScrum (development)
Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering....
for Brütal Legend, which they found worked well with their company's culture, allowing them to quickly arrive at playable targets at every milestone. For example, the team was able to bring about their terrain engine and renderer and a playable Eddie Riggs within a month of development, and by the third month, the ability for Eddie to drive about the terrain, running over hordes of enemies.
Schafer stated that they began the development with the character of Eddie, and recognizing what he should be doing in the game—specifically, swinging around his axe, playing his guitar, and driving his hot rod. Once they found this combination of elements to work well in combat and general gameplay, they were able to expand out the rest of the game from there, as these elements provided a means of testing the game to make sure it remained enjoyable. The first major feature developed for the game was the multiplayer element, given that no previous game from Double Fine had included this feature, and was the highest risk element to the game. The multiplayer was developed with its core as a real-time strategy game based on Herzog Zwei
Herzog Zwei
Herzog Zwei is a Mega Drive / Genesis game by Technosoft, published in 1989 . It is an early real-time strategy game, the first with a feature set that falls under the contemporary definition of the genre, predating the genre-popularizing Dune II...
, though simplified to focus more on an action-style game than on strategy. The team used the 2.5 version Unreal engine
Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs and RPGs...
with UnrealScript
UnrealScript
UnrealScript is the scripting language of the Unreal Engine and is used for authoring game code and gameplay events....
to build their initial concepts for the real-time strategy elements to allow the gameplay and designers to able to commence work while another team worked on their own game engine. With the multiplayer aspects completed, Double Fine was then able to tailor the single player campaign as a tutorial for the multiplayer experience. Following the multiplayer element was the development of the "streaming world", also an element the team had no prior experience with. Double Fine developed several in-house tools to help streaming the content-creation process for the game's world: an automated testing bot, RoBert (so named after one of the software test engineers) was created to put the daily builds of the game through stress tests and player experience throughout the clock and automate any error reports to developers, while a Multi-User-Editor building tool relied on database backend to allow the games' artists to work on sections of the game world simultaneously without data loss. The development team ran into content problems late in the game's development in January 2009, as several assets were simultaneously completed and tripled the amount of content for the game, based on disk space. They were able to wrangle the issues with the performance of their development systems and reoptimize the content for on-disc space, though plan to expand their infrastructure to handle such impacts for future games.
Schafer has stated that the development team discussed how guitar controllers from Guitar Hero or Rock Band could be used with the game, but determined there was no good way for players to switch from a standard controller to the guitar controller and back, and thus have "no plans" to include support for these controllers in the game. Players who preordered the game through GameStop
GameStop
GameStop Corporation is an American video game and entertainment software retailer. The company, whose headquarters is in Grapevine, Texas, United States, operates 6,500 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New...
were able unlock a special promotional in-game guitar designed in conjunction with Black's band Tenacious D, and includes voices provided by both Black and Kyle Gass.
While Brütal Legends fate was unclear, Schafer was not able to talk about the project to avoid causing problems with any potential business deals, until EA Partners picked up the game in December 2008. However, even when the fate of the publication of the game was unsure, the team continued to work on its development. Schafer reflected that the time spent during development without a publisher was beneficial, allowing them to design the game without pressure from the publisher's goals. EA CEO John Riccitiello, when asked about EA picking up Brütal Legend for distribution prior to December 2008, commented that "Sometimes significant creative risks end up being some of the world’s best products".
When rumors of a possible Wii port arose in March 2009, Schafer stated that "We are making an Xbox 360 and a PS3 version of Brütal Legend." However, according to Ben Fritz at Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, another studio has been engaged by Electronic Arts to bring the game to the Wii, albeit at a later date than the other console versions, suggesting that it may follow the same model as Dead Space: Extraction
Dead Space: Extraction
Dead Space: Extraction has received favorable reviews, with an average rating of 82/100 on review aggregator Metacritic. Official Nintendo Magazine awarded the game 84 percent and called it "A first rate introduction to one of the finest survival horror franchises of recent years." The website...
, a Wii title scheduled to be released about a year after Dead Space
Dead Space (video game)
Dead Space is a survival horror third-person shooter video game, developed by EA Redwood Shores for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was made available on Steam on October 20, 2008...
s first release. However, further industry rumors, which claimed that the Wii version was being done by Electronic Arts in-house, have stated that the effort to port the game to the Wii has been canceled due to quality and technical concerns. There is presently no planned PC
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version of the game, as Schafer has stated that the game is primarily an action game and "meant to be on a console".
Double Fine believed they were given the go-ahead to develop a sequel to Brütal Legend after the game's release, but were later told by EA that it was cancelled. Schafer stated that the sequel would likely incorporate much of what they had to drop prior to the game's release. This included more factions to fight and a game world three times larger than what Brütal Legend contained. Schafer also had ideas for a plot using a character voiced by Ronnie James Dio, but will not likely be used due to Dio's death. Instead of a sequel, Double Fine began work on four smaller projects, based on prototypes they had created from "Amnesia Fortnights" during the development period where they had lacked a publisher. In these two-weeks sessions, the Double Fine team was split into four groups and each tasked with creating a small prototype game to share with the rest of the company; all four mini-games were well received internally. Upon hearing of the cancellation of the sequel, Schafer and his team began to promote these games around, and were able to obtain publishing deals for all four titles. The games will be able to take advantage of the custom game world engine and other assets they had created for Brütal Legend.
Promotion
Brütal Legend was officially announced in October 2007 through a feature article in Game InformerGame Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
; gaming journalists had received a vinyl record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
from Activision that contained a backwards message
Backmasking
Backmasking is a recording technique in which a sound or message is recorded backward on to a track that is meant to be played forward...
alluding to the game's story. The game's release in October 2009 was promoted as "Rocktober" in official literature about the game from Electronic Arts. At the 2009 Download Festival
Download Festival
The Download Festival is a three day rock music festival held annually at Donington Park, England . It usually takes place in June...
in Donington Park
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England.Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it was created as a racing circuit during the pre-war period when the German Silver Arrows were battling for the European Championship...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
arranged for 440 fans of Brütal Legend to help to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of air guitar
Air guitar
Playing air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar, including riffs, solos, etc. Playing an air guitar usually consists of exaggerated strumming and picking motions and is often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching...
players, all simultaneously playing to "Ace of Spades
Ace of Spades (song)
"Ace of Spades" is a song by the English band Motörhead, released in 1980 as a single and the title track to the album Ace of Spades. The song spent 12 weeks in the United Kingdom Singles Chart, peaking at #15.-Overview:...
" by Motorhead. A series of short online videos featuring Black (and Schafer in two instances), entitled "Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black", have been used to promote the game since May 2009. At the 2009 Video Music Awards, Black appeared in cosplay
Cosplay
, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction...
as Eddie to promote the game.
A promotional concert for the game was held at the 2009 Comic-Con International
Comic-Con International
San Diego Comic-Con International, also known as Comic-Con International: San Diego , and commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con, was founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans...
Convention in July 2009, and featured the metal artists Gwar
Gwar
Gwar is a satirical heavy metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia, United States, in 1984. The band is best known for its elaborate science fiction/horror film inspired costumes, obscene lyrics and graphic stage performances, which feature humorous enactments of politically and morally taboo...
, 3 Inches of Blood
3 Inches of Blood
3 Inches of Blood is a Canadian heavy metal band formed in 2000 in Vancouver, British Columbia, currently consisting of Cam Pipes, Justin Hagberg, Shane Clark, and Ash Pearson...
, Unholy Pink, and Keith Morris
Keith Morris
Keith Morris is an American singer and songwriter known for his role as frontman of the hardcore punk bands Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and Off! Born and raised in Hermosa Beach, California, he formed Black Flag at the age of 21 with guitarist Greg Ginn and performed on the band's 1978 debut EP...
. It has also been announced that Brutal Legend is the official sponsor of the 2009 Mastodon
Mastodon (band)
Mastodon is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 1999. The band is composed of bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor...
/Dethklok
Dethklok
Dethklok is both a virtual band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, as well as a real band created to perform the band's melodic death metal music in live shows. The band was created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha. The music heard on Metalocalypse is performed by Brendon...
tour. Schafer appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
on October 2, 2009 to promote the game. Black appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 14, 2009, dressed as Eddie Riggs and staying in character during his interview.
A demo version of the game was made available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace and PlayStation Network Store; it was available for a limited time on September 17, 2009 for North American users who had pre-ordered the product through GameStop
GameStop
GameStop Corporation is an American video game and entertainment software retailer. The company, whose headquarters is in Grapevine, Texas, United States, operates 6,500 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New...
. The demo became available to all Xbox Live Gold users on September 24, 2009, and to Xbox Live Silver users and all PlayStation 3 users the following week. The demo is based on the game's beginning, showing Eddie's arrival and his encounters up until the first boss character fight.
Publishing issues
Brütal Legend was originally to be published by Vivendi GamesVivendi Games
Vivendi Games, formerly known as Vivendi Universal Games, was the holdings company for Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. Vivendi Games was founded as Vivendi Universal Games after Vivendi bought Universal Studios in the early 2000s...
' subsidiary Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
. In 2008, Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
merged with Vivendi's game division (which included Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
) to become Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc., formerly Activision, Inc. is the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment. The company is majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA and was created through the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games, announced on December 2, 2007, in a...
, gaining the rights to publication of Brütal Legend. Upon evaluation of their assets, Activision Blizzard chose to drop Brütal Legend along with several other games, leaving the project in limbo. Double Fine themselves were unaware that Activision had chosen to drop the game, having been informed through an Activision press release that omitted the game from their upcoming release schedule, according to studio producer Caroline Esmurdoc. Industry rumors suggested that Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
was interested in publishing the property, and it was confirmed in December 2008 that Electronic Arts would publish the game. During the period when Brütal Legends fate was unclear, Schafer was not able to talk about the project to avoid causing problems with any potential business deals.
In February 2009, Activision Blizzard had asserted that the Electronic Arts deal was invalid, believing that they were still in negotiations with Double Fine to publish the game. It was believed that Activision was seeking monetary compensation in a similar manner as it received from Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
for Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a 2009 cross-platform action game based on the Ghostbusters film franchise. Terminal Reality developed the Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions, while Red Fly Studio developed the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii versions, and Zen Studios...
and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a science fiction first-person action game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. The game is a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which has been remade and has been included along with the Assault...
, games that were dropped when Activision Blizzard re-evaluated their assets. On June 4, 2009, Activision filed suit to prevent publishing of the game, claiming that they had invested $15 million in the title and still had a valid contract to release the game. Activision's suit also contends that Double Fine had missed a deadline for the game last year, requesting more time and an additional $7 million in development fees. Activision's considers both the loss of the money they spent on the game as well as potential sales and Brütal Legend-related merchandise as part of the harm done in the lawsuit.
In July 2009, Double Fine issued a countersuit against Activision, citing that the latter company had abandoned the project before, and was trying to harm Brütal Legend during its critical marketing phase, as well as trying to protect its Guitar Hero franchise. The countersuit stated that Activision had dropped the game after its merger with Vivendi and a failed attempt to convert the game into a Guitar Hero sequel. Schafer was infamously quoted as saying, in commenting on their actions, "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it. Oh great, now Beyonce
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
is going to sue me too."
In late July, the presiding judge, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan, reported that a preliminary ruling that could have affected the game's release would have been given on August 6, 2009, with Karlan tentatively ready to deny Activision's motion to delay the game. However, prior to the ruling, the companies announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement on the lawsuits, though details were not available.
Though most the developers involved in the game were shielded from the effects of the lawsuit, Double Fine's Caroline Esmurdoc noted that it took a significant toll on Schafer and the other lead executives at the company. Activision's lawsuit had been filed at the time the game had reached the alpha release state, and would need to be concluded prior to the game's final release; this required the executives to dedicate their time towards information gathering, interviewing, and other legal matters "during the crunchiest, most critical time of development". As such, while they ultimately were able to settle the legal matter, Esmurdoc believed that the impact of the effort in settling the lawsuit impacted the quality of the final product. Schafer wrote more than 50% of the game's dialog in the few months following the completion of the lawsuit and prior to release, a "big crunch" for him.
Downloadable content
Schafer, prior to the game's release, stated that Double Fine had "something awesome" planned for downloadable contentDownloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
to further support the game after release. Two downloadable packs have since been released. The first, "Tears of the Hextadon", was released in early November 2009, containing two new multiplayer maps and a new single-player weapon. The pack was initially free on the PlayStation Network for the first two weeks of release. The second pack, "The Hammer of Infinite Fate", was released in mid-December 2009, and in addition to new multiplayer maps, expands the single-player experience by incorporating new weaponry for the Deuce, outfits for Eddie, a GPS system to track collectables in the game's world, and other additional content, including figureheads of Razputin, the lead character from Psychonauts, and Schafer himself.
Reception
Brütal Legend received positive response from gaming journalists, with reviewers praising the story and characters of the game, driven vocal performances of the voice actors, particularly Black and Osbourne. Daemon Hatfield of IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
felt Black was "completely committed" to the role of Riggs, while Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
's Ryan Davis found it relieving that Black reined in his typical "loud-talking heavy-metal goofball" act that he is known for and instead performed well, "bringing just the right amount of working-man's matter-of-fact-ness to the role". Osbourne's role was considered "amazing (and surprisingly coherent)" by Gamespot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's Giancarlo Varanini and "played brilliantly" by Computer and Video Games
Computer and video games
A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but following popularization of the term "video game", it now implies any type of...
' Andrew Kelly. The full cast was commended for their roles; the heavy metal musicians were effective at playing themselves in the game, while the other voice talent performed well and "[did] their part to balance out the star power" in the game. The strength of the characters was considered to be enhanced by the quality of writing of the story, and the use of facial animation. Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
's Christian Donlan considered the characters of Brütal Legend to be the strongest aspect to the game, distancing the title from other video games due to "rounded, personable leads who are distinctly superior to the usual throngs of cybermen and super-vixens", and a facet of Schafer's signature work. Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
s Chris Kohler further attested the strength of the game's story to Schafer's skill, considering that "After Brütal Legend, he should be considered one of the best storytellers in gaming, period." 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
's Justin Haywald noted that the game lacks the ability to review cutscenes, forcing the player to restart the story if they wanted to see these again.
The heavy metal-inspired world of Brütal Legend was also well received, and considered to show a clear reverence for the genre. Gerald Villoria of Gamespy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
considered the game to be "dedicated to an unabashed love of metal" and "heavy metal fan-service to the highest degree". Davis believed that the juxtaposition of all the elements that made up the heavy metal fantasy world were the game's greatest strength, often being "both giddily ridiculous and fist-pumpingly badass" at the same time. Critics found that while the graphics for the game may not be the most sophisticated for the current console generation, the detailed art aspects of the world were impressive; Varanini considered that "no matter where you are in the world, there's always some cool object to look at", while Donlan considered the world to be a "constant unfolding delight". The incorporation of heavy metal music into the game also benefited the game. Both Kelly and Villoria considered the soundtrack essential to the game, and praised the moments where specific songs, such as Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" would be used as background music during specific game sequences. Kelly further praised the game for using the songs to define the action of the game instead of relegated to random background music. Villoria also considered the soundtrack to have "enormous breadth of sound and diversity", introducing the player to heavy metal genres they may not have known even existed. G4TV's Jake Gaskill considered listening to the soundtrack to be the equivalent of "taking a class in heavy metal appreciation."
The actual gameplay was seen as Brütal Legends largest weakness. Many reviewers were critical of the incorporation of real-time strategy (RTS) elements into the game, a fact that was not well advertised prior to the game's release and does not become apparent to the player in the first hours of the game. Though Schafer had set out to make the console-based game like an RTS from the start, they were warned by both Vivendi and Electronic Arts that "RTS" was "a naughty word in the console space", and instead marketed it as an action game. Despite this, reviewers found that the game was still difficult to play on a console due to the selected controls that made it difficult to target objectives or troops, the lack of a mini-map to track friends and foes, and the frantic pace of battle.
Critics did appreciate the slow introduction to the various aspects of the game as part of the single player game, but felt the game did not adequately introduce or explain all of the game's RTS features, such as the ability to mount a final stand on one's stage. Some also considered the single-player campaign Stage Battles to be too easy, winnable by brute force, and that more advanced tactics would only become apparent as one played in multiplayer games, including learning the abilities and advantages of the other units of the factions other than Ironheade. The mix of gaming genres between the RTS and third-person action was found particularly confusing; Kohler commented that the handling of the individual genres was accomplished well, leading to "an astoundingly complex design instead of a simple one" that diminished the enjoyment of the game, while Davis considered that "perhaps there wasn't enough confidence in any one piece to let it carry the whole game". However, some felt that the various genres helped to create "a variety of gameplay opportunities", and made for "rather elegant" Stage Battles. In retrospect, Schafer lamented the fact that they did not include enough tutorials in the game to guide the player as to "naturally how to play the strategy part a bit better", as they had come to accept over the years of development, and tried to use the Double Fine blog to explain some of these aspects.
Gameplay outside of the Stage Battles was also met with mixed impressions. Most considered the side missions highly repetitive, which included mission types that are generally disliked by gamers, such as escort missions. The lack of a mini-map, replaced by either following a glowing light from the sky illuminating the player's target or by navigating based on the Deuce's turn signals was criticized for making it difficult to explore the game's world. The information about the world that players can access the in the game's pause menu was also found to be lacking, showing neither the collectible elements of the game on the main map, nor easily identifying the alliance of the various troops in the in-game guidebook. Though Eddie gains the ability to fly during Stage Battles, the inability to use this or to make the character jump led to reviewers getting the character stuck on the landscape at times when exploring. Some reviewers found the number of progress checkpoints in the game to be lacking, requiring the player to repeat a long mission if they should die before reaching one. The single-player game was also considered to be short, lasting as little as four hours if one only completed the main story missions.
According to the NPD Group
NPD Group
The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company. The NPD Group consistently ranks among the top 25 market research companies in the independent Honomichl Top 50 report, which the media and the research industry acknowledge as a credible source of information on the market...
, Brütal Legend sold approximately 215,000 copies in the United States in the month of October 2009, with about 150,000 copies being for the Xbox 360 platform, making it the 12th top selling game in that month. These numbers were not considered to be strong, and was attributed to the difficult marketing of the game, which emphasized Jack Black's involvement and the heavy metal nature of the game, but did not assert what the gameplay would actually be like, with the possibility that the mention of the RTS elements of the game would have possibly driven more players away from the game. In an interview in February 2011, Schafer claimed that the game has sold over 1.4 million copies. According to data collected through Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
, some songs contained within Brütal Legends soundtrack saw digital sales increases of up to 700% following the game's release, similar to the effects of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, though impact on overall sales of these songs were rather small.
Black was given the Best Voice award at the Spike Video Game Awards 2009. Brütal Legend won the "Best Strategy/Simulation Game" and "Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack" awards in the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
, and was nominated for "Outstanding Character Performance" (for Eddie Riggs), "Outstanding Achievement in Original Story", and "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction". The game was also nominated for the Game Developers Choice Awards
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are annually presented by the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999.The 2009 award presentation was...
for "Best Writing" and "Best Audio".
See also
- Full Throttle, an earlier Tim SchaferTim SchaferTimothy Schafer is an American computer game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in January 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts...
game featuring bikers and heavy metal music. - Sacrifice, a Shiny Entertainment PC game using a similar concept of a 3rd person RTS game.