After contributing the song "Mad Hatter" to the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 soundtrack last September, Avenged Sevenfold have deepened their ties with the game by introducing a playable character of none other than the band's lead singer and resident gamer geek himself, M. Shadows.
During a recent livestream interview (see the video below at the 1:13:00 mark) about his involvement with the game, Shadows explained, "My relationship came from just being a huge fan of the game, and we were playing on the road, we were playing in life in general." He tells the story of meeting Mark Lamia, the chairman of Call of Duty's maker Treyarch, after the band's late A&R rep Craig Aaronson passed away, and says the two have been friends ever since. "Somehow I weaseled my way in," joked the frontman, "and somehow we got involved."
Shadows' character will be part of Operation Apocalypse Z Blackout — a new season of content that will feature multiplayer maps and modes that channels the experience of the zombies in the game — which debuts July 9th on Playstation 4 and July 16th on PC and XBox One.
Of course, this is far from the band's first foray into the world of gaming, as they released their own Hail to the King: Deathbat game back in 2014 and have contributed multiple songs to the Call of Duty franchise over the years. Those tracks were compiled on 2018's Black Reign EP.
