Metal: Hellsinger is a rhythm first-person shooter in which firing your guns to the beat makes them more powerful. I enjoyed it plenty when I reviewed it this past week, despite not being the biggest fan of heavy metal music. I may enjoy it even more in future, since its developers announced that they’re going to support music modding soon.
Developers The Outsiders tweeted the news shortly before the game launched this week:
Let’s tear down the skies.
Coming soon to PC.
Custom Music Modding support.Unleash Hell. To YOUR beat. pic.twitter.com/eOim4lllwX
— Metal: Hellsinger 🤘😈🔥 OUT NOW! (@MetalHellsinger) September 14, 2022
“Coming soon to PC. Custom Music Modding support. Unleash Hell. To YOUR beat,” reads the tweet.
Although I don’t love metal, I didn’t hate the music in Metal: Hellsinger by any stretch. It’s got a beat that had me tapping my foot, and it propels the action forward as you blast through hordes of demons.
I’m extremely curious how music modding will work, though. Metal: Hellsinger doesn’t just give you a static soundtrack to shoot and reload over. The music changes as you grow more powerful, adding more layers, and only becomes a complete song with vocals when you max out your multiplier.
It would be wonderful if The Outsiders released the tools so that actual musicians could stick in their music on separate tracks and have that layering still work. As someone musically untalented, however, I’d be perfectly happy with being able to stick in any old mp3 if it’s got automatic beat detection. Let me burst demons to Prince. Let me slice through hell to Dave Brubeck. Let the Games Done Quick streamers play on hard mode to John Cage’s 4’33”.