Heads up: if you're expecting an answer to the question poised in the headline here, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place. That wasn't rhetorical at all, and I am genuinely baffled as to what made Sega partner with popular Iowa nu metal band Slipknot, of all people.
Video games and musicians have been collabing with each other for decades, with one of the more recent examples being Metallica themselves appearing in Fortnite. That I can kinda understand, Metallica, already one of the world's biggest metal bands, had a breakthrough in the normie/zoomer demographic when Master of Puppets was famously featured in Stranger Things, and that wasn't long before the release of their latest album 72 Seasons and all the touring that ensued. Fortnite collabs have already worked for Bruno Mars, J Balvin, Lady Gaga and many other artists, but James, Kirk, Lars and Rob are the first metal musicians to appear in game.
On the other hand, Slipknot, one of my favorite bands as an edgy teen, haven't released any new music in 2 years, and their lineup has become a revolving door at this point. Sure, nu metal is making a comeback and Gen Z are here for 90s vibes, even that side of it, but I have no idea why Atlus chose Slipknot to help them promote Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.
The first one shows Holywood special FX team Ojala Productions, who've created masks for Slipknot in the past, create masks based on the SMT demons Daemon, Loup-Garou and Garulu. It's a cool look at the behind-the-scenes business of special FX and the masks turn out pretty cool, but other than the concept of masks and the band being mentioned, it really doesn't have much to do with Slipknot. Even the music used is generic instrumental rock and sounds nothing like them.
Fortunately, about 1/3 of the band (it's hard to keep track of who's in and who's out these days) appear in the second video. Shawn "Clown" Crahan, whose role in the band has been hitting beer kegs with a baseball bat since its inception, plus the band's latest 2 members to join this year, former Sepultura drummer Eloy Casagrande and the currently unidentified "New Guy" who's responsible for keyboards and samples. The trio discuss the SMT masks and what the concept of masks means to the band itself. But it still doesn't actually feature any Slipknot music. What, do Sega think gamers can't handle a bit of People = Shit?
If you can find a connection between Slipknot and Shin Megami Tensei, please let me know in the comments. Slipknot have always been more of a "satanic imagery to scare your mom" kinda metal band rather than the unironic "hAiL sAtaN" types you find in black metal, so it can't be the demons. Other than that, what do you guys make of this collab? Let us know below!
