Bring Me The Horizon Release New Video For Ludens

After unveiling their new song Ludens last week, Bring Me The Horizon have dropped an official video for the track – taken from the soundtrack to new game Death Stranding.

Within the game, the player must connect with isolated colonies via technology after an apocalyptic event leaves the planet in ruin. So far, so bleak. But BMTH frontman Oli Sykes says their track Ludens attempts to put something of a positive spin on the storyline.

“We build these new inventions, and this technology that can help people,” he tells Kerrang!. “I was reading about this 16-year-old who has invented a microorganism that can eat microplastics in the ocean; sometimes things can get so dark that you don’t see there are still these little rays of light everywhere. After reading all this, I felt like it needed to have at least a semi-positive message about what’s going on.

"If it’s not you, who is it going to be that makes a change or helps?" he continues. "Everyone goes, ‘Someone else will sort this out.’ And that’s how I was for ages, too – I was like, ‘I’m just going to quietly keep my beliefs to myself and hope that people see that things need to be done, and they change in their own way.’

“I think what’s happened, maybe even over the past six months, is that if you believe in something, you really do need to stand up for it. The kids that are going out and doing that are making a difference. I didn’t have that faith before, and now I do. I want to join that fight, and I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. That’s the message of the song: that we need new leaders and new heroes, and new people to try and beat this fucked-up game.”

But does Oli see himself as a new leader? Well, just because you're fronting one of the biggest British bands doesn't mean you're the right person to lead a country…

“I don’t feel ready, but I feel responsible. If I’m going to do this job and travel the world and get to do this amazing thing, I can’t just offset it. It’s now a case of figuring out how to do it in my own way, because I’m not a politically-charged person. I’ve got an interest in it, but you have to know a lot about it. Right now I’m trying to figure out how I can help the most, and how I can make a difference in my own way, before I jump in and start blabbing about shit that I’ve never spoken about before (laughs).

“It’s always meant something to me – I’ve always loved animals and cared about the world – but I guess a lot of people don’t want to hear about it, and they don’t want to talk about it, and I’ve always wanted to be that person who’s just cool with everyone; I don’t wanna ruffle anyone’s feathers. But it’s gone past preaching now: these are facts that need to be repeated so people can finally start being able to hear the words ‘mass extinction’. I think when they hear something like that, it makes their skin crawl and they go, ‘No, I don’t want to think about that.’ And if you do believe in that stuff, you really do have to do something about it. This is something that goes through my head every day, so if I’m not using this small power or influence that I’ve been given, then it makes me feel like I don’t know why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

Watch BMTH's new video for Ludens below.

Last week, Oli revealed that Ludens is just one of many new BMTH tracks to look forward to.

"Ludens will be the first song you hear from the new record," he told NME. "We’re not going to do an album again, maybe ever. We’re thinking about doing shorter records. I don’t want to say we’re going to do something and not live up to it, but the plan is to release multiple records next year.

“There’s all this shit you need to think about and how it’s going to sit on a 15 track album," he continues. "I don’t want to do that. When we wrote Ludens, it was crazy but it was fun. We just had to write one song and it just had to serve the video game. We didn’t have to write the biggest song in the world. I just love to sit and go, ‘Let’s just write a song and not worry about how it needs to be.’”