Hail to the King app iconMusicians lending their trademark, namesake, and licensing of their music in video games isn’t anything new anymore these days. But to actually be a part of the production and design is something quite on the contrary. In collaboration with Subscience Studios, multiplatinum heavy metal rockers Avenged Sevenfold had just released their mobile app game called ‘Hail to the King: Deathbat’. Starring the band’s Deathbat ‘mascot’, the dungeon crawler/ hack-and-slash/ RPG has been described as a cross between The Legend of Zelda, Gauntlet Legends and Diablo and is available to download on iOS and Android.

Says M. Shadows, lead singer of Avenged Sevenfold: “We’ve been fans of games since we were kids, and we thought it would be fun to create one of our own inspired by our favorites. There are so many cool and innovative indie games being developed today, and we realized we could design and build the kind of game we’d love to play on our own. It is coming together amazingly well, and we can’t wait to share it.”

The game features melee combat and ranged magic, with a wide variety of weapons and abilities to discover. The seven “hellish” areas players must explore are inspired by Avenged Sevenfold’s music and artwork, with music written by the band exclusively for the title.

According to Shadows, “We’ve been trying to downplay the music part because with the way our band sounds we don’t expect even half of our fans to get it or to understand it. It’s purely throwback video game music. A lot of 8-bit sounds but a lot of instrumentals. We made songs that reminded us of our youth playing ‘Castlevania’ or ‘Mario Brothers,’ ‘Zelda.’”

Shadows continues, “So we made nine songs, which are original songs that we put together. They’ll be in the game. I’m sure we’ll do some sort of packaging where you can buy those songs with ‘Hail to the King’ or whatever. Or you can just play the game and listen to them. There’s nine songs, but we’re trying to downplay it. I don’t want everyone to think nine new songs, then they hear it and it’s a bunch of digital music.”

Band members are unlockable within the game as playable characters and via in-app purchases. The band’s late drummer, Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan, will be included as part of the game. M. Shadows says, “With the blessing of his parents, we put The Rev in the game. Once you unlock his character, you can use him as your comrade to help you through the levels.”

‘Hail to the King: Deathbat’ is available right now from the iTunes App Store, Google Play Store and on Steam for $4.99.