We like summer time track fairs, so right here at Wargaming, our staff at International of Tanks Fashionable Armor has made it a project to carry you a hard-rockin’ annual track match that really shakes the battlefield: Steel Fest.
New tanks, new 3-D Commanders, new Demanding situations and occasions: they’re all a part of what Steel Fest gives every summer time. However that is our 3rd yr of the development, coming to you on PS4 and PS5 beginning August 26. We knew we needed to cross larger and louder than ever.
To borrow some lyrics chances are you’ll know, we would have liked the most productive—and we were given the most productive.
This yr, our featured act is none instead of the mythical band Kiss! No longer most effective that; we’ve were given the real voices of core participants Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley within the recreation.
That is the way it all shook out.
Shout It Out Loud
Ever for the reason that band’s presentations at The Daisy in March 1973, after they debuted the nature designs they’d grow to be recognized for, Kiss has been greater than a gaggle of professional musicians. They’ve been icons and personas.
So despite the fact that Steel Fest 2025 options 4 new Kiss-inspired Top rate tanks, we knew in particular that the 3-D Commanders representing the 4 vintage Kiss personas (The Demon, The Starchild, The Spaceman, and The Catman) needed to be completely proper and bigger than existence.
Thankfully, as International of Tanks’ senior manufacturer JJ Bakken explains, the band was once all in. “Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] had been gracious sufficient to offer us a few of their time for the sport, as they constitute the absolute best profile characters in Kiss … Each Gene and Paul noticed all our ideas as we created them for characters and tanks. [They] introduced the theory to us to truly lean into the fantastical components of every persona.”
Our artwork staff labored to get the ones fantastical components down, whether or not we’re speaking the pussycat claws and nimble animations given to The Catman 3-D Commander or the giant pair of bat-like wings that Tanks’ artwork director Andy Dorizas prompt for The Demon 3-D Commander.
However as any tanker is aware of, relating to our 3-D Commanders, it’s now not with regards to the glance. Our avid gamers’ favourite Commanders discuss with custom-written voiceover traces, so after all that’s the case for all 4 of our Kiss Commanders.
“Kiss themselves made the verdict to have Paul and Gene featured as voices within the recreation,” says the sport’s audio director, Brendan Blewett. “They had been very specific in that the Kiss ‘characters’ are simply that—characters, now not real-life people. Every of them has characteristics and the ones are portrayed, within the example of The Starchild and The Demon, through Paul and Gene.”
So what was once it like, running with mythical musicians to carry the voices in their world-famous characters to our console battlefield?
“Operating with Paul and Gene was once an absolute blast,” says Blewett. “Those guys are patently seasoned studio vets and truly made the classes a laugh and attractive.”
He provides, “Gene lived as much as his recognition as a grasp of trivialities and stored us entertained between takes regaling us with tales from the street and factoids. Paul was once completely a gracious, pleasant person and belted out a shockingly intense vocal efficiency and stored it going for the entire consultation. We even quipped that it was once ‘like six months of presentations in two hours.’ Spectacular!”
As for the voiceover for The Starman and The Catman, tankers and Kiss lovers must leisure rock out confident that those Commanders have gained the similar consideration to element. In keeping with Blewett, “We labored with Kiss to grasp the nature profiles of The Catman and The Spaceman and got here up with casting tips from there. As an example, The Catman is a smaller man, witty and agile, whilst The Spaceman is older and wiser. The phrase ‘sagacious’ was once utilized in consultation to explain the character of The Spaceman.”
Warfare System(s)
Should you assume the Kiss 3-D Commanders sound spectacular (and sure, I’m biased, however they’re), make sure to recruit them all through Steel Fest, and pair them up with our 4 Top rate Kiss tanks, additionally encouraged and named after the characters: The Demon, The Starchild, The Spaceman, and The Catman.
Every of those tanks now not most effective takes visible inspiration from Kiss; it additionally has talents encouraged through a selected band member’s character. You’d higher imagine that The Demon is a tank that mounts a flamethrower!
All of that is along with the Demanding situations, particular match battles, day-to-day login rewards, and extra that Steel Fest gives. Rock out whilst you’ll be able to, and don’t pass over any of it—Steel Fest takes position in International of Tanks Fashionable Armor from August 26 via September 15 on PS4 and PS5!
