Together with Bethesda, a music video and a new song by Saltatio Mortis for the MMORPG Elder Scrolls Online is being created. Thematically, it fits with the new expansion High Isle and the pantheon of gods. We from MeinMMO were able to talk with the band and learn what fascinates them about the MMORPG.
What happened with ESO? On June 6, the latest expansion for the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, High Isle, was released. But it brings not only new items, an exciting story, and open dungeons but also exciting developments outside of the game.
For instance, the band Saltatio Mortis was brought on board to produce a new song fitting for ESO. Included is an elaborate video and an event supported by Bethesda. The event and the song itself are titled “Pray to the Hunter.” Among other things, you can win tickets for gamescom and a sailing trip with the band.
Update: We conducted the interview on June 7 and updated the article on June 10 with current links and the final video.
The premiere of the song and the accompanying video took place on June 10. However, fans had the opportunity to watch the new clip together with the band at the Schauburg in Karlsruhe on June 9 and then chat about it (via schauburg.de).
In the video, you will also see very similar armor as in the new trailer for High Isle:
Who are Saltatio Mortis? The currently seven-member band has focused since its founding 22 years ago on the Middle Ages and always accompanies exciting stories with rocking tones and groovy bagpipes. In 2020, they released “Für immer frei,” their fourth consecutive number one album.
However, the group is not far from the gaming world either. At the beginning of the pandemic, they became active on Twitch, streaming not only Dark Souls but also in the Just Chatting category, and had an appearance at the medieval camp of streamer Knossi and rapper Sido.
And perhaps you have also heard of them outside of their music, as some band members lent their voices and names to NPCs in the role-playing game The Dark Eye: Drakensang. Because besides their real names, the members of Saltatio Mortis are often known by their stage names.
Who talked to us? As part of the collaboration between Bethesda and the band, we also had the opportunity to conduct this interview. Answering our questions were singer and multi-instrumentalist Jörg Roth aka Alea, the Humble, as well as shawms and hurdy-gurdy player Gunter Kopf, better known as Falk Irmenfried von Hasen-Mümmelstein.
They tell us what fascinates them about MMORPGs, why The Elder Scrolls Online serves as the template for the song, and how a fishing quest can become the most beautiful MMORPG experience.
“I now sit on tour with a laptop and play Elder Scrolls Online”
MeinMMO: In the medieval and fantasy world, you are known to feel at home. But how did the leap to gaming as inspiration for your music come about?
Falk: It’s actually not that far away. Most of us are also roleplayers, at least pen & paper and board gamers. Each of us has also gone through one or another online adventure. This has always been a topic that we wanted to do something with.
We just never found the right partner who said, “Okay, let’s take the risk and work with a band as intensively as Bethesda has done with us now.” And it’s just so extraordinarily great. We can basically do whatever we want, and we receive good feedback. It’s a fantastic collaboration that couldn’t have gone better. So maybe it was also good that we didn’t just try it before.
Alea: What one can also say at this point – Falk and also Timo, who used to be in the front row with us, our lyricist. They even wrote stories for pen & paper games, namely for Shadowrun and The Dark Eye.
Falk: Exactly, the old dark eye. And they even released Aventurian PC games and we were actually voice actors for that. I voiced at least 30 complete branches. It was terrible, not terrible, but terribly great.
MeinMMO: Going from pen & paper to MMORPG is quite a bigger leap, especially in terms of the number of players. What are the top 3 points you like best about the MMORPG genre?
Alea: I have to say that until I started playing Elder Scrolls Online a year ago, I always said: “I’m someone who wants to experience this story alone.” The first game I really got immersed in was Daggerfall back then. You ran from village to village in real time! For a few hours, nothing happened, but you got a few steps closer.
During the Corona times, I fully discovered gaming for myself. That fever I had back then has totally caught me again. And then we had this event with Bethesda, where as a Skyrim and Daggerfall fan I thought: “Wow, how did that happen?”
Then we played Elder Scrolls Online for the first time in the stream. And it blew me away so much that I now spend hours in ESO several evenings a week. The guys have already experienced that I now sit backstage on tour with my laptop and play ESO. It has to be that way.
Therefore, and that’s the absolute reason for me why I play ESO – the community. The community is incredibly nice, it’s unbelievable. I have never experienced anything like it. I recently mentioned in one of my streams that I want to save up for a werewolf bite and briefly asked if someone could give me one. It took less than 2 minutes, and the messages came flooding in. It was really no problem at all.
Or when you are in fights. Help is given; someone you don’t know applies their healing abilities, so you don’t die. Or revives you if you mess up, because you, like me, are a noob. And I haven’t experienced that in any online or multiplayer game before. I have only experienced that people who log in as a team support each other. Whether in Battlefront or Alien Fireteam Elite – I always had the feeling that someone would get annoyed quickly if you played poorly.
And here, you get messages giving you tips. There is simply a generated name. I don’t get these messages because I am Alea, but because someone notices that there is a new player starting who hasn’t leveled up far yet, and they’ll help me out. That’s beautiful.
Falk: That’s definitely one reason. For me, the second reason: I believe it was 1997; we are in the times of Ultima Online. That was my start with MMORPGs; back then no one really knew what it was or what you were doing. But you were online with other people, and you could communicate.
There’s nothing cooler than interacting with other players. And when you play on an RP server and can roleplay, that’s just good. What excites me about it is that you don’t just play for your high score at home on your computer, but you create something that is larger than the game you are playing.
You deal with people, with emotions on the other side. You create memories. And I will never forget how I sat at the “campfire” in Ultima Online and talked with people about everything. There were really things happening that made me spoiled for everything that is single-player and goes beyond Diablo.
Alea: As a third point, for me, also because I am currently so active in ESO, is the story depth and the sheer size of it all. I have already completely played through Vvardenfell, and the story was amazing. It had exciting twists and cool situations.
It’s a playable world in itself, with great people, and I simply believe this size, the different countries, the various quests that still connect and the mega lore that emerges from it fascinates me the most.
The community was the reason to leave World of Warcraft
MeinMMO: What was the most beautiful moment for you that you’ve experienced in an MMORPG?
Falk: Oh dear, I may not be able to say that here. But for me, it was when I fished Old Ironjaw. And anyone who knows the name I’m mentioning has really completed every fishing quest in WoW. That was for me the absolutely most unnecessary, but absurd moment. I can’t describe how great that was.
Because I was really half a year behind trying to finish this quest. And by coincidence, I then caught the first of two rare fishes you can fish in Orgrimmar as an Alliance player while we fought through. I cast my fishing rod into the lake, caught the fish, and thought: “Shit, now I need the other one too.” I just wanted to have them all. It’s such a mini-detail, but that was just the Pokémon effect.
Alea: For me, it was the first transformation into a werewolf in ESO. I was so excited and had so much fun just running around as a wolf. Just the feeling that enemies you have never been able to defeat before suddenly cower in fear when you howl as a wolf.
MeinMMO: Looking at the other side: Have you had particularly negative experiences in gaming or MMORPGs specifically?
Alea: Overwatch. Just Overwatch. I thought the design was so cool. I always played Genji and thought it was so cool and I really wanted to play this game, but I’m sorry. After the 30th insult from a stranger, I just thought no. No, then let it be.
I also believe that someone who brings a game to market should ensure that something like this doesn’t happen. Bullying happens, and I think that is terrible. It’s already terrible in real life, but when there are some tough guys, and you don’t even know who is sitting there, writing things like “go die,” that’s really awful.
You can’t know what moment you catch someone who is just playing who had a bad day and just wants to disconnect and play, and then they are told such things. I think that’s really terrible.
Falk: Yes, exactly for that reason I left World of Warcraft behind. After they changed it so that you are just randomly beamed into instances, the situation was such that you played with people who were just grinding and the whole talk just turned negative.
I continued to play because roleplaying is so important to me and it’s important for me to have cool encounters. When you meet an Alliance player as a Horde player at 3 am who is also mining for copper, and you enter into a role-play situation, that I always found incredibly beautiful, but I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I also think what Alea says that the people who post online and run the game have a responsibility to see what it’s all about.
On page 2 of the interview, we talk about the idea of writing music about video games and what fascinates the band about ESO the most.
