HEALTH have released a free Vampire Survivors-esque game titled Rat Wars Survivors.
The game, available on itch.io, bears more than a passing resemblance to the popular indie game Vampire Survivors. Instead of fighting against vampires however, the player battles against rats, with the title Rat Wars Survivors serving as a reference to the recently released sixth studio album from the band, also titled Rat Wars.
The description for the game tells players that they can “choose your favorite member of the band HEALTH and fight in the Rat Wars”, before explaining that to succeed in the game players need to “kill rats, collect their blood to level up, expand your arsenal and upgrade”. The players arsenal includes an assortment of sex toys and the ability to use magic to defeat the oncoming rat swarms.
HEALTH previously composed the soundtrack for Max Payne 3, before working again with developer Rockstar Games in 2013 for a track featured in Grand Theft Auto V. In 2020, HEALTH was featured in the popular role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077, and this year they debuted their new single ‘HATEFUL’ through New Blood Interactive‘s first-person shooter Ultrakill.
In 2022, HEALTH held a concert that was Elden Ring-themed, with the band using visuals taken from FromSoftware’s action-adventure title. HEALTH spoke to NME about the event, stating: “It was getting turned into this big thing. They made t-shirts, it was wild, we had already filmed our L.A. show, and Loma Vista wanted a live stream that we’re just gonna throw on Twitch for free anymore, so we were like alright, fuck it. So, we basically bootlegged ourselves into Elden Ring.”
In other gaming news, Skull & Bones has received yet another release date at The Game Awards 2023. Elsewhere in gaming, As Dusk Falls is coming to PlayStation in March 2024, over a year after the game was originally released on Xbox.