Tesseract is a prog-metal, grassroots UK band about to drop an immersive VR experience for its new album War of Being. Back in 2019, Dan Tompkins (vocals) began streaming on Twitch, through which he met developer and programmer Adam Boyt.
When Tompkins became involved in streaming VR games, Boyt approached him with the suggestion of recreating his studio space in VR. This idea soon evolved into a Tesseract metaverse – a visually striking space where fans of the band and Tompkins could gather, socialize, and enjoy Tesseract’s brand of hard-hitting, ethereal metal together as a community. The original concept was a huge lounge bar, cinema, and merch area for fans to congregate, as well as an area to meet some of War of Being’s characters and soak in its story. But why stop there?
Tompkins and Boyt spoke exclusively to PCGamesN to discuss how this lounge and communal listening party has evolved into a full game entering early access. “I’ve always been really keen on developing and bridging the music and gaming worlds,” Tompkins explains. “As far as I’m aware, I’ve not come across any project or band that’s created a VR experience based on a musical concept for a band’s album.” Sure, there are many virtual reality music experiences out there, and Bjork even went as far as creating a VR version of her album Vulnicura, in which you can witness the Icelandic environments that inspired the record, but in terms of a full-fledged VR game with its own combat, objectives, and puzzles, Tesseract is the world’s first.
NB: I played a very early access version of War of Being and movement mechanics have been improved with a patch implemented for release.
“When we were developing this stuff we started to talk about, ‘Well, why don’t we create a full game?’ which sounds ludicrous considering it’s just a DIY project with three people,” Tompkins explains. He had never even downloaded Unreal Engine before, while Boyt was quite familiar with it. Having taught himself everything he knows so far, this is Boyt’s first game release, but Tompkins still had faith that he could pull the task off. “He was confident that we could build worlds and make this game, so as soon as we finished recording the album in August ‘22, I literally dropped everything and went straight into learning Unreal Engine, learning game development from scratch,” Tompkins says. Kirsty Harvey, the game’s 3D designer, couldn’t join us for the call but the two state that she’s a vital, integral part of War of Being’s development. “It’s come a long way in over a year,” Tompkins laughs, “It’s actually mind-blowing.”
War of Being, as I’ve discovered from my own playthrough, is a stunning visual experience with beautiful landscapes and environments, seven maps in total, and serves as a way to discover snippets of the new Tesseract single, The Grey, with the conclusion of the game’s early access version leaving me surrounded by characters from this story, listening to the single in full. I’ve never known a music promotion campaign like this, and I’ve worked in music journalism for 13 years.
“There was definitely a consideration of the fact that no one’s done it before to this degree,” Tompkins confirms, “I know that there are bands and musical projects out there that have created computer games, the most famous one that I can remember is Moonwalker, the Michael Jackson game, obviously,” he says. “I know that, particularly my audience in the Tesseract world, they love progressive music, they love concept albums, and a lot of metal fans love gaming. I’ve seen that for many, many years,” Tompkins explains, “So as a big gamer myself, I knew there was an audience and a way to tap into that.” We discuss at length the predictability of a normal album promotional cycle. The band creates an album, there’s a promotional video for the first few singles, then it’s time for a tour. Tesseract wanted to create something unique and a fresh way of engaging with music. “It just hit me in the face as being the most obvious thing to do,” Tompkins explains, “and it was very, very daunting.”
My own personal tendency to bomb through a game doesn’t work in War of Being. I’m forced to slow down, to take in the environments, to look for clues for the puzzles, and to think about my route. I have to explore every corner of the map for the answers I need to progress, and Tompkins explains that this was exactly what the team was aiming for. “It’s not just your standard game. It’s very much about building the atmosphere and the story, so we actually want you to take your time, absorb it, explore it.” He continues, “We’ve got fans who aren’t gamers, and gamers who aren’t fans, and a lot of people talk about Dark Souls, but we can’t make anything like that because 90% of people will just give up before they hear the single.”
What’s striking about War of Being is that it features environments from the first music video taken from the album, the 11-minute behemoth title track, which was also developed in Unreal Engine. “Fans are going to be able to experience that music video to a degree in VR. At the end of the game, it culminates in a conclusion where the characters will suggest that there’s more to come from the game and the concept, but you get to actually stand in the same open lake area where our samurai are fighting in the War of Being video,” Tompkins explains. When the full game is released there will be a level per song, nine in total, and these expanded levels will give fans the opportunity to discover independent music stems that build the songs.
Tompkins says that the loyal Tesseract community has been a huge factor in the game’s development. “We’ve always grown with the fans. We’ve never signed a major record deal and been thrown on the radio. It’s been slow growth for us. We really appreciate the value in community. I think during covid and the Twitch thing, that definitely hammered home the point that this is a very important part of who we are,” he explains. It’s true, too – enter any of the community spaces that Tesseract holds, whether that’s the band’s Discord server, Twitch streams, or any of the social media channels, and you’ll spot a mix of the same, loyal names, and fledgling fans excited that their new favorite band actually wants to interact with them. There’s a lot of the band’s personal lives intertwined with the game, too. One of the main characters is voiced by Tompkins’ own son, Jack, and the entire concept, album included, is based on a novella series by the band’s bassist, Amos Williams. As Williams writes more, the game expands, and the Tesseract universe balloons with it.
To promote War of Being and expand it beyond early access, Tesseract will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for the game. Beyond that, Tompkins will be playing the game through on his own Twitch channel and hopes that others will too. “It’s such an exciting idea – the fact you’re going to get to absorb and experience music in a very new way, especially being in a game that is specifically designed to cater for the album,” Tompkins concludes. War of Being, as a game, will challenge you the right amount, and so will the accompanying music. Step out of your comfort zone and take part in something experimental and fresh.