{"id":1188188,"date":"2026-02-16T14:37:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=566724"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:37:30","slug":"an-indie-game-dev-revives-a-long-lost-genre-the-heavy-metal-band-video-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/an-indie-game-dev-revives-a-long-lost-genre-the-heavy-metal-band-video-game\/","title":{"rendered":"An indie game dev revives a long-lost genre: the heavy-metal-band video game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The biggest rock bands of the \u201980s and \u201990s \u2014 including Journey, Queen, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, Aerosmith, and Metallica \u2014 achieved a specific cultural significance beyond their music, their videos, and their tours. Some of those arena rockers built video games around themselves<\/a>, often to mixed results, in a way that doesn\u2019t really happen anymore. Now, big musicians show up in Fortnite<\/em> or Beat Saber<\/em> or in mobile games built around their brands.<\/p>\n

But one indie developer is trying to bring the rock band-inspired video game back. Nicola Piovesan, head of Chaosmonger Studio<\/a>, is turning his longtime fascination with the band Voivod<\/a> into a game, Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard of Voivod, then you\u2019ve clearly not been dialed into the Canadian thrash and speed metal scene over the past 40 years. In all seriousness, that\u2019s understandable; Voivod has never seen the level of global commercial success of a Metallica or an Aerosmith. But the Quebec-based group is a venerable, influential band across multiple metal genres, and like other notable metal acts (Megadeth, Iron Maiden), it has a specific artistic aesthetic and a mascot, the Voivod. <\/p>\n

Voivod, the character, is the creation of Michel \u201cAway\u201d Langevin, drummer for the band Voivod. The star of Langevin\u2019s post-nuclear fiction, conveyed through album art and other illustrations<\/a>, hails from a bleak sci-fi fantasy world known as Morgoth. Langevin is responsible for nearly all of Voivod\u2019s artwork, and his distinct illustrative and musical style has long been an influence on Piovesan.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI’ve been listening to the band since I was a teenager,\u201d Piovesan said in an interview with Polygon. \u201cBack then I was more like a metalhead. Now I listen to almost every sort of genre, but Voivod is one of those bands that I kept listening to through the years. They’re very eclectic and their sound is very original and it keeps going on, despite changes they\u2019ve had in the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Langevin has been the sole consistent member of Voivod since its formation in 1982. He is responsible for the band\u2019s visual aesthetic, which is full of dark, sci-fi imagery, usually rendered in ink, markers, and paint. The Voivod character appears on many album covers, including the band\u2019s debut, War and Pain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Piovesan plans to adapt the world of Morgoth, the character Voivod, and the many strange alien creatures that Langevin has created over the past four decades into pixelated form for Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior<\/em>, a Metroidvania-style, run-and-gun narrative game.<\/p>\n

During his previous career as a filmmaker, Piovesan directed an animated video for Voivod\u2019s song \u201cTarget Earth<\/a>.\u201d He\u2019d had the idea of a Voivod game \u201cfor a long time,\u201d Piovesan said. \u201cAnd in the meantime, I shifted my career from the film industry to the game industry. I released a few games in the meantime and I thought, OK, now is the right time to do a Voivod game<\/em>, so I mentioned this to them during a concert in Prague a couple years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

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