Game Music Digest | Someone Finally Asked The Weeknd About Video Games

MusicEXP is a weekly newsletter exploring the intersection of video games and music, edited by Mat Ombler. Subscribe to receive weekly round-ups of the latest music and gaming stories, and monthly deep dives into trending topics. For more music and gaming news, make sure you listen to the GXM Podcast, which I co-host with Thomas Quillfeldt.

In brief: Washington Post journalist Gene Park and Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (AKA The Weeknd) have spent the last couple of months “getting to know each other” after Gene Park DMd the four-time Grammy-winning musician to learn more about his passion for video games. According to Gene, this is the first piece in their collab discussing the art of games.

This particular piece, which Gene has kindly shared a gift link for so you can read it for free here, explores The Weeknd’s obsession with "About Fishing,” an upcoming indie-horror fishing game developed by Kevin Brown (The Water Museum)

EXP: Take a couple of moments to scroll through Gene Hackerman’s Instagram profile – an alt account set up by The Weeknd at the beginning of this year – and his love of video games, anime and Japanese culture is immediately obvious.

The Weeknd has spent most of this year rubbing shoulders with video game developers who developed some of the industry’s most beloved franchises, people like Hidetaka Miyazaki(Dark Souls, Elden Ring), Yoko Taro (NieR), and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil).

As I scroll through pictures of The Weeknd sharing a plate of sushi or a glass of sake with the names mentioned above, I can’t help but quietly whisper to myself: “One of us! One of us!”

Yes, The Weeknd is a big nerd. But until now, it’s never been clear how much of a nerd he really is. Gene’s article in The Washington Post reveals that The Weeknd’s cousin had a Sega Dreamcast with a collection of burned (copied) Japanese games that he’d never heard of before: Shenmue, Power Stone, and Seaman, the pet simulation game where you raise fish creatures with human faces.

Sega’s Dreamcast console is home to an astounding collection of avant-garde and experimental releases from Japanese studios, and for a young kid like Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, soaking up the absurdity of games like Seaman was a formative experience. So much so that when Abel discovered About Fishing, a modern indie game that’s very much rooted in the jagged polygon aesthetic of that experimental era, he was instantly hooked.

“It reminded me of being a kid and finding games that felt like they came from somewhere else,” he tells Gene Park.

Anyway, I wanted to share this story because it’s an amazing example of how universal the language of and love for video games is. The Weeknd is one of the biggest musicians in the world, and I can’t imagine he gets a lot of opportunities outside of endless PR cycles around new music releases to talk about the stuff he actually likes.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tesfaye writing music for or collaborating with some of the game studios he admires so much – Sega Atlus, Square Enix, Capcom – in the coming years.

I’d love to know if management has been involved with any of these game meet-ups or if they came about just because Tesfaye started reaching out to people.

Either way, I think there’s a lesson here for labels and managers to engage with their artists and learn about the stuff that genuinely excites them. Because if it’s video games, you can take that knowledge and passion and use it to go out there and make cool shit happen.

Now go and read the full story.

In brief: Game studio ProbablyMonsters has announced that HEALTH, Jared Dines (Oni), Misha Mansoor (Periphery), and Ricky Armellino (Ice Nine Kills) are contributing music to the upcoming gothic-action game, Crimson Moon. The artists are collaborating with the studio’s in-house music team to write original metal tracks for the game’s boss encounters. Crimson Moon is out 1st September, 2027 on PlayStation, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

EXP: Clever stuff, this. Teaming up with artists who align with the target market for the game and will presumably promote it on their socials at release, allowing ProbablyMonsters to get the game in front of even more people.

This will reach a lot of people, especially when you’ve got a YouTuber like Jared Dines who has three million subscribers. I’ll hazard a guess that the fee they paid for his music contribution was less than what you’d pay for an influencer marketing campaign with someone of that reach.

I’m a big advocate for music collaborations like this. It reminds me of the work we did at Laced when we teamed up with Massive Monster to bring a load of metal musicians into Cult of the Lamb’s universe. It’s great promo for the game, and an amazing creative opportunity to get into the gaming world for the featured artists (all of whom love video games, by the way, especially Misha, who’s written music for Halo in the past and also created Final Fantasy covers in his early days as Bulb).

By the way, if you’re reading this and you work at a game studio and want to do something similar, drop me an email! I’ve got a long list of metal musicians who are actively seeking opportunities in the video game space.

In brief: Addison Rae is the latest artist to join Fortnite as part of its “Icon Series,” an in-game collection that turns real-life cultural figures such as musicians, influencers, athletes, and fashion icons into Fortnite cosmetics such as Outfits (skins), Emotes and Jam Tracks.

EXP: Fortnite players can now purchase the Addison Rae Bundle from the Item Shop for 3600 V-Bucks, a rather difficult number, as players can only purchase V-Bucks in quantities of 800, 2400 or 4500. Anyway, 3600 V-Bucks is equivalent to $25 (ish) and will get you the following:

Famous Addison Rae (Outfit)
Addison Rae (Outfit)
Addison's Sundae (Back Bling)
Aquamarine the Turtle (Back Bling)
Addison's Mic (Back Bling)
Addison's Biggest Fan
Fame Scepter (Glider Skin)
Addison's Mic (Weapon Skin)
Fame is a Gun (Emote)
Diet Pepsi (Emote)
Addison (Wrap)
It's Addison (Loading Screen)
Addison's Mic (Mic Skin)
Fame is a Gun (Jam Track)
Diet Pepsi (Jam Track)

As always, a masterclass in music asset monetisation from Epic Games. But I can’t help but wonder why Epic Games didn’t just choose Addison Rae as the Icon for the latest season of Fortnite Festival.

As I explained in last week’s newsletter, the latest season of Fortnite’s rhythm game mode experienced the lowest engagement in its history, a combination of Lil Tecca as a headliner and a notable lack of improvements/updates on the game side.

While some Festival players would have undoubtedly voiced the same criticisms of Addison Rae as they did with Lil Tecca (Who?! Where are the guitars?!) she’s much more popular. Even with lower music engagement, you could argue that by making Addison Rae the focus of Festival, it might introduce new players to the rhythm game mode and address its problem with churn.

It doesn’t matter either way, because new people will likely jump into Fortnite regardless to check this collaboration out. But as I said last week, I do have slight concerns about the future of Festival given its downward trajectory.

• Fantasy rhythm game Lily Fantasia is out now on the Nintendo Switch. Check out some gameplay footage here.

• After shipping 500k copies (!) Dead as Disco has launched an auto-BPM detection as part of their latest update.

• SEGA has released a 100-track playlist celebrating the work of musician Jun Senoue and it’s picked up a load of organic press coverage.

• Hybrid virtual artist group aespa is broadcasting the first show on their upcoming tour in 146 theatres across 11 regions, including South Korea. Concerts in cinemas could be the next growth area for the music industry and cinema chains.

• This is an absolute must-read piece exploring the history of Halo and heavy metal, with some absolutely killer callouts to some fairly obscure deathcore and metalcore bands (MyChildren MyBride!) who have paid tribute to Master Chief over the years.

• The Cure, Radiohead and Bad Omens have been added to the growing line-up of bangers featured in the upcoming rhythm game, Stage Tour.

• Overwatch and World of Warcraft composer Adam Burgess has left Blizzard after 11 years.

• The soundtrack to the survival shooter Rust is heading to vinyl for the very first time.

• Weird article, but I’m here for it: Electric Callboy share their seven favourite alternative tracks from video games.

• The next trailer for GTA VI will launch as a timed exclusive on Netflix. I can’t wait to smash that “looks like AI slop” button on LinkedIn as game experts who have never worked in the games industry share their thoughts in the coming weeks.

• Nine Inch Nails Quake composer Trent Reznor made a special appearance at QuakeCon to deliver a special message to fans and announce a collaborative Nine Inch Nails merch range.

• Pinkfong’s Baby Shark is collaborating with the Korean MMORPG Ragnarok.

• Ozzy Osbourne, Lamb of God, Bad Bunny, Fatboy Slim and Good Charlotte are all part of the mammoth soundtrack for Madden NFL 27.

• I love regional music collaborations and we need more of them in the games industry: PUBG MOBILE has announced its first in-game collaboration with an African music artist: Nigerian Afro Street Pop artist Ayomaff.

• Alan Walker has released a new song as part of his collaboration with SNK for the fighting game Fatal Fury: City of Wolves. Listen to it here.

• Ubisoft doesn’t get enough praise from the general gaming masses for the quality of its music initiatives. Check out this fantastic piano and vocal cover of A Hero Waiting from The Division.

• I’m gonna make more of an effort to share some of the obscure video game soundtracks I listen to in my downtime, like Armored Core: Formula Front. Fun fact: the track I linked just now was composed by the same dude who wrote the main theme for Elden Ring.

• Also in sick game soundtracks: Dungeons & Dragons Eye of the Beholder composed by Streets of Rage legends Yuzo Koshiro & Motohiro Kawashima.

• And because I can’t stop listening to Japanese Fusion this year, here’s a reminder that the Casiopea-coded soundtrack for Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon is criminally underrated!

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