Is it your dream to see The Offspring perform in a war zone? You’re in luck, oh haver of hyper-specific dreams, because the Californian rock band is set to play all their hit songs inside World of Tanks tomorrow, September 18. Put down your guns, stop loading that shell, because there’s going to be an armistice, and it’ll be set to timeless classics like Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).
This is a first for Wargaming’s vehicular skirmish game. Before, the only music you could make was the sweet sounds of war, which sounded a lot like explosions. It comes hot on the heels of The Offspring headlining Wargaming Fest: Tanker Day in Minsk, Belarus, which happened over the weekend.
Drafting a popular music act to perform in a game has happened before. According to Epic, 10.7 million people attended Marshmello’s concert in Fortnite earlier this year. 43 million people later watched the EDM artist’s recap video on YouTube. And, back in August, nu metal band Korn drew a crowd for their raucous set inside MMORPGs AdventureQuest 3D and AdventureQuest Worlds.
The Offspring’s announcement has been met with everything from excitement to bemusement. One Twitter user summed up the pervading confusion best.
Ok but is anyone gonna ask how this works? Is it live? Are we all gonna be tanks just watching the show? Are the band members tanks?
— 3y2m1w4d (@3y2m1w4d) September 16, 2019
That’s actually a great question. Will spectators have to pull up in tanks to watch the gig, like at an old-school ‘50s drive-in? Will The Offspring be made into weird hybrid tank men, with gun barrels for noses and big metal bellies? We’ve seen in-game gigs before, but never in games where there are no human character models. If it moves in World of Tanks, it’s probably a tank.
The Offspring and tanks aren’t natural bedfellows. One goes around driving terror into the hearts of people with a thunderous cacophony, and the other is The Offspring. Wait, I messed the punchline up. It’s just because I’m so excited about tomorrow, when we’ll all lay down our arms and witness Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland, Todd Morse, Pete Parada, and Kevin ‘Noodles’ Wasserman bring the noise. Potentially as disturbing human tanks.
Let’s hope a fire doesn’t disrupt the show this time.