Eight-bit diehards, get your thumbs ready: pop rock darlings Weezer have launched a nostalgia-heavy online side-scrolling action game, playable via web browsers.
The “The End of the Game” game has users playing as one of the band’s four members and jumping and shooting their way in a (surprisingly difficult) boss fight against an oversized, beanie-clad alien. Players can nab extra lives by grabbing a number of Weezer-related items (surf wax, for one).
And if the alien boss looks familiar — it’s the same one from the music video for the song “The End of the Game” off the band’s forthcoming and metal-inspired “Van Weezer” album, due out May 15.
It’s not the band’s first foray into gaming — a year ago, a special custom map for “Fortnite” called Weezer World was revealed. The purple-hazed map featured an enormous “W” based on the band’s iconic logo, a huge disco dance floor, slides, and colorful paneling. It unlocked four songs from the band’s Black Album — their sixth eponymous LP. “Van Weezer” will be the band’s fourteenth studio album overall.
Weezer is due to hit the road as a triple bill with Green Day and Fall Out Boy this summer on a tour of stadiums, including L.A.’s Dodger Stadium July 25 and New York’s City Field August 22. The “Hella Mega Tour” is slated to kick off with a European leg beginning June 13 in Paris.
Weezer announced the game via the band’s Twitter account late Friday morning, first with cheeky online “poll” about whether or not to release it (“Yes” or “100000% Yes” were the options), and later with a link to the game’s website, writing that it’s “[the] perfect game to play while you’re stuck inside and done watching Tiger King.” Can’t say we disagree.