We love summer music festivals, so here at Wargaming, our team at World of Tanks Modern Armor has made it a mission to bring you a hard-rockin’ annual music event that truly shakes the battlefield: Metal Fest.
New tanks, new 3D Commanders, new Challenges and events: they’re all part of what Metal Fest offers each summer. But this is our third year of the event, coming to you on PS4 and PS5 starting August 26. We knew we had to go bigger and louder than ever.
To borrow some lyrics you might know, we wanted the best—and we got the best.
This year, our featured act is none other than the legendary band Kiss! Not only that; we’ve got the actual voices of core members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in the game.
This is how it all shook out.
Shout It Out Loud
Ever since the band’s shows at The Daisy in March 1973, when they debuted the character designs they’d become known for, Kiss has been more than a group of skilled musicians. They’ve been icons and personas.
So even though Metal Fest 2025 features four new Kiss-inspired Premium tanks, we knew specifically that the 3D Commanders representing the four classic Kiss personas (The Demon, The Starchild, The Spaceman, and The Catman) had to be absolutely right and larger than life.
Fortunately, as World of Tanks’ senior producer JJ Bakken explains, the band was all in. “Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] were gracious enough to give us some of their time for the game, as they represent the highest profile characters in Kiss … Both Gene and Paul saw all our concepts as we created them for characters and tanks. [They] brought the idea to us to really lean into the fantastical elements of each character.”
Our art team worked to get those fantastical elements down, whether we’re talking the feline claws and nimble animations given to The Catman 3D Commander or the enormous pair of bat-like wings that Tanks’ art director Andy Dorizas suggested for The Demon 3D Commander.
But as any tanker knows, when it comes to our 3D Commanders, it’s not just about the look. Our players’ favorite Commanders speak with custom-written voiceover lines, so of course that’s the case for all four of our Kiss Commanders.
“Kiss themselves made the decision to have Paul and Gene featured as voices in the game,” says the game’s audio director, Brendan Blewett. “They were very particular in that the Kiss ‘characters’ are just that—characters, not real-life individuals. Each of them has traits and those are portrayed, in the instance of The Starchild and The Demon, by Paul and Gene.”
So what was it like, working with legendary musicians to bring the voices of their world-famous characters to our console battlefield?
“Working with Paul and Gene was an absolute blast,” says Blewett. “These guys are obviously seasoned studio vets and really made the sessions fun and engaging.”
He adds, “Gene lived up to his reputation as a master of trivia and kept us entertained between takes regaling us with stories from the road and factoids. Paul was absolutely a gracious, friendly individual and belted out an incredibly intense vocal performance and kept it going for the whole session. We even quipped that it was ‘like six months of shows in two hours.’ Impressive!”
As for the voiceover for The Starman and The Catman, tankers and Kiss fans should rest rock out assured that these Commanders have received the same attention to detail. According to Blewett, “We worked with Kiss to understand the character profiles of The Catman and The Spaceman and came up with casting guidelines from there. For instance, The Catman is a smaller guy, witty and agile, while The Spaceman is older and wiser. The word ‘sagacious’ was used in session to describe the personality of The Spaceman.”
War Machine(s)
If you think the Kiss 3D Commanders sound impressive (and yes, I’m biased, but they are), be sure to recruit them during Metal Fest, and pair them up with our four Premium Kiss tanks, also inspired and named after the characters: The Demon, The Starchild, The Spaceman, and The Catman.
Each of these tanks not only takes visual inspiration from Kiss; it also has abilities inspired by a specific band member’s persona. You’d better believe that The Demon is a tank that mounts a flamethrower!
All of this is in addition to the Challenges, special event battles, daily login rewards, and more that Metal Fest offers. Rock out while you can, and don’t miss any of it—Metal Fest takes place in World of Tanks Modern Armor from August 26 through September 15 on PS4 and PS5!