Turn Metal: Hellsinger into Jazz: Bebopswinger with new, free modding tools

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Metal: Hellsinger, the high-speed headbanging FPS from Hell, features a "great soundtrack and well-integrated rhythmic combat," we said in our 78% review. But what's a poor gamer to do if they want to rock out against the hordes of Hades but, well, they really just don't care for metal?

Enter the power of mods. Announced today by The Outsiders and Funcom, Metal: Hellsinger's free modding tool enables users to insert their own music into the game, and make it react appropriately to the player's performance. Want to be a K-Pop Killer? A Disco Death Machine? An EDM MDK? All things, at least insofar as musical massacres go, are possible.

To rock out with your mods out, you'll need Metal: Hellsinger on Steam or Ga m e Pass—either the full game or the free demo will do—and a copy of FMOD Studio. With that in hand, head over to metalhellsinger.com/modding and snag the modding package itself: It's 383MB in size, so not too bulky. You'll also find a modding tutorial there, which explains the basics of the process.

A few points of note: You'll need to use the FMOD Studio template provided by The Outsiders (a blank FMOD Studio project won't work), all FMOD features should work but some "may have side effects" that could impact performance, and the music you use needs to have a fixed beats-per-minute because Metal: Hellsinger doesn't currently have runtime beat detection and so can't adjust to tempo changes on the fly. (Sorry, prog fans.)

Here's a crash course video:

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Watch On

The mod tools open the door to all kinds of new genres in Metal: Hellsinger, and despite the BPM limitation, which I hope will be addressed in a future update, the results as seen in the Jazz: Bebopswinger video at the top of the page speaks for itself. It's a little thematically jumbled, sure—basically the videogame equivalent of Charlie Parker covering Dream Evil, which, yeah, it's kinda weird—but it works! To me, that's pretty metal.

Update: Funcom initially indicated that Metal: Hellsinger mods could be shared through Steam Workshop, but that's not actually the case. For now, developers are looking into adding Steam Workshop support "at a later time."

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.