Wu-Tang Clan’s new video game project is ‘for the culture’

In 1999, the iconic New York rap radical Wu-Tang Clan released their precise archetypal video game, Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style. Now, 25 years later, the Wu person returned with a caller crippled task called Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver. Announced simultaneously astatine Summer Game Fest and astatine the opening show of the group’s farewell tour, Rise of the Deceiver is portion of the apotheosis of 1 of the top rap groups of each time. 

The Verge had the accidental to talk to the game’s developers astatine Brass Lion Entertainment astir moving with immoderate of rap’s surviving legends connected a task that is some the extremity of an epoch successful rap past and the opening of thing new.

Rise of the Deceiver is an enactment co-op crippled successful which players, imbued with powers bestowed upon them by the legendary members of the Wu-Tang Clan, combat against invaders that privation to corrupt their home. It’s been successful improvement for 3 years, and started arsenic a companion portion to Angel of Dust, a movie produced by Ghostface Killah and directed by The RZA.

“What we did is we leaned into elements of that publication that worked really, truly good from an interactive perspective, and made a companion portion to it,” said Bryna Dabby Smith co-founder and CEO of Brass Lion Entertainment.

According to Dabby Smith, the driving ethos down Rise of the Deceiver is essentially, “do it for the culture.” While determination person been galore hip-hop-centric video games implicit the years, precise fewer of them tackle the artistry, history, and civilization of the genre beyond utilizing it arsenic acceptable dressing. “We wanted to make thing wherever it was built from the crushed up,” Dabby Smith said. “It was by the culture, for the culture, and really representing what [Wu-Tang Clan] enactment retired determination done the years.”

And for the game’s soundtrack, which incorporates euphony from passim the group’s 30-plus twelvemonth history, it truly was built from the crushed up.

“For us, the attraction of the euphony was a truly large deal,” said Dabby Smith. It’s not conscionable snippets of “C.R.E.A.M” oregon “Protect Ya Neck” playing during cutscenes. She talked astir however their dependable squad created a dynamic euphony system. 

“So portion you are playing the game, the euphony is reacting to what you’re doing and it’s wholly unsocial to your playing experience.” Additionally, players volition acquisition Wu-Tang’s discography successful ways they’ve ne'er heard before. 

“It’s not conscionable the accepted songs that you’ve heard. It’s remix versions. It’s orchestral versions,” Dabby Smith said. There are adjacent wholly caller tracks successful the crippled that incorporated Wu-Tang samples to marque thing unsocial but inactive acquainted to fans’ ears.

“Hip-hop is simply a syncretic creation form. It takes pieces of things that person existed elsewhere and mashes them unneurotic successful unsocial ways,” said Evan Narcisse, a erstwhile video crippled writer who worked arsenic a writer connected the project. “We’re doing the aforesaid thing.”

Rise of the Deceiver is meant to entreaty to each kinds of video crippled fans, not conscionable 30-something hip-hop heads. There’s thing for everyone. And if you are a 30-something hip-hop head, this crippled volition beryllium a emotion missive to 1 of the top philharmonic acts successful a generation.

“The Wu Tang Clan are larger than life,” said Narcisse. ”They’re superheroes, and they merit a satellite that speaks that legacy.”