Back in July, Eli had the opportunity to sit down and go hands-on with Hail to the King: Deathbat, an upcoming mobile game from the band Avenged Sevenfold. The game itself is a hack ‘n slash dungeon crawler type affair, with a dark and moody visual style and a surprisingly high level of difficulty. Usually when a big-name brand crosses over into the world of video games, the results are very hit or miss, but Hail to the King: Deathbat showed a lot of potential.
For one, it’s not just some game with Avenged Sevenfold stuff plastered all over it, and in fact if you didn’t even know who the band was you’d probably never know just by playing the game. It features video game’d out versions of some of the band’s music, and the Deathbat itself is sort of the band’s trademark companion, but Hail to the King: Deathbat is a video game first and foremost rather than some sort of marketing tool. It’s also surprisingly hardcore in terms of difficulty, another thing that goes against the grain of mixing big IPs with mobile games.
Today Avenged Sevenfold has announced that Hail to the King: Deathbat will be launching next month on October 16th, and they’ve released a brand new trailer to mark the occasion.
While I like the band Avenged Sevenfold well enough, I’m actually super stoked to get my hands on the final version of Hail to the King: Deathbat regardless of the band’s connection. I love dungeon crawlers and difficult games, and Deathbat looks like it serves up heaping spoonfuls of both. I’m really interested to see if this sort of thing will be a success, since Deathbat is basically going in the opposite direction of what’s popular in the App Store by targeting the hardcore gaming market instead of the much larger casual one. We’ll find out in about a month when Hail to the King: Deathbat is unleashed on the world.
