Every legend has a song, and yours is one of metal, vengeance, and destruction.
Hell of a night for a story, ain't it? Sit 'er down, look at them stars, and I'll tell you one... South of heaven, way, way south now, there was this soul. Special, I mean to say. This soul came to Hell just like a tune that comes into your head. Nobody knew why or where from. All they knew, she had a score to settle. Now, demons not being the most creative types, they just called her 'the Unknown'. But Hell is Hell. And down there, they take away what you love most. Took her Voice. For now, what you need to know is: she wanted it back.
— The Narrator/The Skull
One day, a soul arrives in Hell, with a score to settle. Hell takes away from others what they love most, and so, Hell takes the soul's voice and the Red Judge seals her away. After a long, long time, a voice calls out to her, and after a bit of seeking and slaying, the soul finds a skull. Together, they now battle through the realms of Hell to slay the Red Judge and take back what is theirs.
Metal: Hellsinger is a First-Person Shooter with Rhythm Game mechanics, released in 2022 by Swedish developers The Outsiders. Many actions, like shooting, reloading, and the music, are enhanced if done to the beat of the background song. The songs themselves are noteworthy as they feature vocal talent from many real life Heavy Metal and Death Metal bands, such as Alissa White-Gluz, Bjorn Strid, Mikael Stanne, Randy Blythe, and Serj Tankian. The game is available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
Metal: Hellsinger provides examples of:
- Action Commands: You can shorten the time of your reloads by pressing the reload key on the golden beat that appears.
- Battle Boomerang: Hellcrow are dual blades that return to the wielder when thrown.
- Big Bad: The Red Judge, the ruler of all Hell, and wants to destroy Unknown no matter the cost.
- Bonus Stage: Most stages have three Torments that unlock after completing the main stage, which challenge you to defeat enemies under certain conditions, e.g. to the beat, or by ultimates or slaughters. Completing Torments rewards you with Sigils, which give a variety of passive benefits.
- Brought Down to Normal: In a post credits stinger, Paz mentions that he and Unknown had gotten lost on their way to heaven, and it's heavily implied both of them ended up separated in the human realm, with a man wearing the Skull on his jacket smiling as a woman with Unknown's build enters a bar to greet him.
- Circles of Hell: There are multiple individual Hells. While the game goes through the typical nine with Unknown going further down to progress, the Skull mentions there are actually thousands.
- Cosmetic Award: There is a Coat of Arms hidden on each level per difficulty, and collecting them unlocks weapon skins.
- Critical Status Buff:
- The Death’s Edge torment challenges boost your damage the lower your health is.
- The Last Breath Aegis sigil boosts your damage when you reach critical health.
- Dem Bones: The Red Judge is a tall skeletal figure who lords over the hells as its warden.
- Defector from Decadence: The Skull used to be an angel, implied to be part of the angelic choir to The All, who willingly fell in order to join the Unknown in her quest after hearing her song.
- Downloadable Content: The game has several DLC add-ons for purchase.
- The Dream of the Beast pack, released in March 2023, adds two new songs, The Red Right Hand machine gun, and three outfits to the game.
- The Essential Hits Pack, released in May 2023, adds eight eight licensed songs you can slay to.
- The Purgatory pack, released in December 2023, adds three songs, the Telos bow, and three outfits.
- Elite Mook: There are three types of enemies that are classified as Elites. They are the Shield Cambion, Siege Behemoth, and Void Stalker, which are enhanced versions of the Cambion, Behemoth, and Stalker, respectively.
- Fallen Angel: Paz, Judge, and probably other major demons. Their wide horns are the "skeleton" of a decayed halo.
- Finishing Move: You can slaughter enemies who are at low health, which restores your own health by a little.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Before you start Acheron, the Red Judge separates the Unknown from the Skull. Fittingly, Paz is unavailable for the duration of the level.
- Giant Mook: Behemoths are giant demons who have the strength and endurance to match their size.
- Godzilla Threshold: The Red Judge gets so desperate in trying to get rid of Unknown they call to Heaven for reinforcements.
- God Is Evil: The All is a corrupt leader of Heaven.
- The Goomba: The Marionettes are the lowest demons in the Hells. They lack strength, intelligence and free will, but they can still be annoying.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The All, said to be a wide corrupting influence.
- Guns Akimbo: The Hounds, Cerberus and Orthus, are dual revolvers.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The difficulty levels are Lamb (Easy), Goat (Normal), Beast (Hard), and Archdevil (Very Hard).
- Limit Break: Each weapon has a unique ultimate ability that can make short work of the opposition.
- Limited Loadout: You can take at most two weapons and two sigils into each level.
- Lemony Narrator: The Skull just as much takes verbal potshots at the forces of Hell and how the terrible the place is as much as he's giving actual exposition.
- Mickey Mousing: Slaughters, reloading, and movements of most enemies are done to the beat.
- More Dakka: The Red Right Hand is a multi-barreled machine gun that normally fires three-round bursts, and unleashes a hail of bullets for its Limit Break.
- Multi-Mook Melee: The December 2023 update adds a Leviathan mode to the game, which has you slaying waves of enemies, and taking randomized power-ups after each one. You also gain a special currency in that mode, Void Echoes, that you can spend on permanent upgrades for future runs.
- One-Winged Angel: After absorbing every soul in Hell, The Red Judge becomes the Worldbreaker Aspect for one final stand against the Unknown.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The denizens of Hell refer to the soul slaughtering all of them as simply "The Unknown". It isn't until close to the end of the game that she's referred to as "Hellsinger".
- Rage Against the Heavens: The Red Judge's ultimate goal. As Unknown got closer to confronting her, she regained her memories regarding the prophecy of the Hellsinger. Both she and Paz had orchestrated her rebellion as a way to oppose the rule of The All, with her death leading to the gates of heaven opening so Unknown could recover the rest of her voice and destroy heaven in the process.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The entire game sees the Unknown mow down Hell to get her voice back.
- Satanic Archetype: The Red Judge, a tall, skeletal demon who rules the Hells as a cruel, brutal ruler with a short-temper. She is also described as a Sore Loser by Paz. Turns out her plan was to rebel against the Forces of Heaven, using the Unknown for the gambit.
- Score Multiplier: Keeping the beat and consistently killing enemies raises your fury, which can give you up to a x16 multiplier.
- Sequel Hook: The slaughter of the Red Judge was part of an overall plan to raid Heaven and take on The All. The game ends as the Hellsinger leaves Hell.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Shield Cambions carry large shields that block most attacks from the front. You have to either flank them or break through the shield with an ultimate.
- Short-Range Shotgun: Persephone is the game's shotgun. It's effective up close, and not so much at range.
- Shout-Out: Most of the achievement/trophy names are named after different rock and metal songs.
- "Breaking the Law"
- "For Whom the Bell Tolls"
- "Highway to Hell"
- "Rise Rebel Resist"
- "Smoke on the Water"
- "Heavy Metal is the Law"
- "Who Wants to Live Forever?"
- "Raining Blood"
- In a couple of surprisingly non-metal variants, "Material Girl", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "No Rest For The Wicked".
- Some are a bit more speculative, like "When She Falleth", which may be a shout out to "And When He Falleth", or "The Ferrywoman" which might reference "Don't Pay The Ferryman".
- There are others aside from the achievement names. At the start of the second boss fight in Stygia, the Judge Aspect shouts "Ride the Lightning!" when bombarding you with waves of electricity.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Thanks to the Essential Hits Pack, you can slay the legions of Hell to the beat of pop tunes like "Feel Good Inc" and "I Love It".
- The Speechless: The Unknown had her voice stolen and is on a quest to take it back.
- Stealthy Mook: Stalkers are melee specialists who can teleport and evade some attacks.
- The Stinger: The post-credits scene shows that Paz and the Hellsinger have ended up in an unnamed city, and have either been transformed into or have disguised themselves as humans.
- Streamer-Friendly Mode: The game mentions that all the songs composed for the game are playable even while streaming. However, it does say that playing any songs from the Essential Hits Pack might result in action being taken against it.
- Utility Weapon: Paz has the unique ability to generate fury with every shot, making it possible to maintain your multiplier even outside of combat.
- Variable Mix: The music builds as your multiplier goes up, finally adding vocals at the maximum multiplier of 16.
