Music has always had an integral part in visual media, from TV to movies toelevating a video gameexperience. Sometimes you hear a song and think, ‘wow, this should have been on this or that soundtrack’ because the imagery created by the lyrics is just so strong.
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Similarly, many artists across all mediums have had moments of inspiration hit while listening to music. What starts out as under three minutes of melody and rhyme suddenly becomes a 300-page novel or a two-hour-long film. Some lyrics hit you so strongly they can even make you want to experience them firsthand, playing through them as the main character.
8Out Of My Mind - B.O.B. Feat. Nicki Minaj
Out of My Mind touches on a lot of points for B.O.B. between his career and the reception by his peers to his mental health, and both he and Nicki Minaj take on fast-paced and erratic perspectives in their verses.
The song as a whole has tons of great imagery, but the lyric “Like Nostradamus and da Vinci combined/ so paranoid of espionage/ I’m watching my doors and checking my blinds” would set the scene for an incredible thriller with an enhanced human protagonist being sought by the government or other agencies, for example. You’d be on the run, going from safe house to safe house, trying to save yourself while uncovering a huge conspiracy.
7Plastic Doll - Lady Gaga
From her Chromatica album, Plastic Doll isn’t as iconic as many of Gaga’s other songs, but she tells a clear and direct story with the lyrics. Though Gaga is likening herself to a Barbie doll and detailing a relationship where she’s being played with - one lyric in particular can set the scene for an entire game.
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“I’ve got blonde hair and cherry lips/ I’m state of the art, I’m microchipped” calls to mind our advancements in AI and human-like robotics. She’s been built by man to be perfect, but has clearly become self-aware enough to know she’s being treated as a toy. A game where you play as this doll-like robot to escape her lab and creators to gain independence would offer tons of twists and turns with stealth and action.
6Robbers - The 1975
All ofThe 1975’s songsare basically written images. They create entire worlds in around four minutes that you can picture clearly in your head, and most of their music videos feel like mini-movies. Robbers in particular has a lot of room for interpretation thanks to layers of lyrical meaning.
“Well now that you’ve got your gun/ It’s much harder now the police have come/ And I’ll shoot him if it’s what you ask/ But if you just take off your mask” is the climax of the song, and sets the mood for a great game about a pair (or group) of robbers who find themselves at odds morally. Imagine playing co-op where half the team is attempting to sabotage the heist the other half is desperately trying to pull off. Each replay would offer a different point of view within the gang, making each time feel new and fresh.
5Waste A Moment - Kings of Leon
Waste A Moment is another great example of a song begging to be made into a video game. It has a cowboy vibe to inspire a legendary gun-slinging persona, known as Sexy in the song and described as “always running from the law."
Though thistough cowboyis clearly on the wrong side of the law, he’s definitely living up to his name as “a live wire, wired, shooting sparks in the night/ He’s a gun for hire, hired with a bead in his sights”. Not many games have pulled off cowboy like theRed Deadseries, and Waste A Moment’s Sexy would allow you to be a purely bad scoundrel and villain instead of just an anti-hero.
4V. 3005 - Childish Gambino
Childish Gambino never misses, and V. 3005 is a prime example of his ability to paint a portrait with just his words. A dreamy R&B song that can inspire melancholy as much as bring peace, V. 3005 debates loyalty and how long into the future it can really last.
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This song would be great inspiration for a paranormal mystery where you start at your own death and have to solve your own murder. Of course, you’ll uncover details about your relationships and past along with the crime. With the lyric “Assassins, I’m stabbed in the back of my cabin/ Labrador yapping, I’m glad that it happened, I mean it” serving as a great closing narration from the protagonist.
3Arabella - Arctic Monkeys
Arabella is the epitome of a woman from the male perspective, but the Arctic Monkeys cast the woman in various daydreams set in places like space, the future, bars, etc. With such a wide variety of situations, you could build a game around chasing after one version of Arabella, or have a game where you’re Arabella jumping from daydream to daydream as she runs from him.
Regardless of which direction the game goes, it would all take place entirely in the mind virtually, but with real-life consequences similar to The Matrix. The haunting and taunting final lyric “I just might have tapped into your mind and soul/ you may’t be sure” making the perfect tagline.
2From Eden - Hozier
From Eden has a dual meaning of a toxic set of lovers, as well as the Biblical tale of The Garden of Eden. The song feels romantic but when you pierce the surface to read the lyrics, you get a sense of danger and suspense.
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“To the strand, a picnic planned/ For you and me/ A rope in hand for your other man/ To hang from a tree” is violent and conspiratorial, though it does leave it open for interpretation if she’s entirely on board with said plan. In game form, this will give you branching plot options where you’re either helping this murderous man execute his crime, or you’re trying to stop him. One way gives you a fun suspense game, the other gives you a tense horror.
1Gasoline - Halsey
Halsey has always been open about their mental health and often uses music to express complex feelings, like in Gasoline. The angry and fraught tension between the artist and the industry in Gasoline is highly relatable even though the lyrics portray the person as robotic and compares them to machinery: “you’re able to’t wake up, this is not a dream/ you’re part of a machine, you are not a human being."
Similar to Gaga’s Plastic Doll, Gasoline would set the groundwork for afuturistic gamewith the protagonist attempting to break free of their surroundings. In this game, however, we’d play as a cyborg - someone revived and built up to be a weapon - who realizes they want to break the machine they’re in, not be a cog in it.
