Back in 2011, when the teaser trailer for PlayStation 3 game Resistance 3 first dropped, all anybody could talk about were two things: how amazing the trailer looked, and how badass the song in the trailer was. I wasn’t checking for any of the Resistance games (not my genre) at first, but Insomniac Games got my attention, along with countless others, after we watched the trailer and heard the song.
The trailer for Resistance 3 is apocalyptic, dark, and conveys the complete sense of hopelessness pervading the survivors of a mass alien invasion by a hostile race known as the Chimera, and their subsequent occupation. As they travel through the arid, and dead landscape of what could be what’s left of the American Heartland on a freight train–a vision that invokes thoughts of the Holocaust–they catch glimpses of abandoned cars and towns, until they are assaulted in a nighttime attack by an onslaught of Chimera. It’s pretty likely that not one soul aboard the train survived.
There are a lot of songs that could have fit the teaser, but none could have captured the utter despair and feeling of impending doom better than “Masters of War” by The Staple Singers. Keep in mind that “Masters of War” is originally a Bob Dylan song, but The Staple Singers covered it, and in my honest opinion, did a much better job of it. The guitar riff is haunting, and melancholy, and the singing is sorrowful, yet soulful. Whether this is fact or not, one can’t help but feel like the Staples were actually touched by war and the injustices it brings about. Given that they covered it in 1964, and the civil rights movement’s ever growing traction in a time of stunning racism at the time, I feel they conveyed the pain and sense of betrayal, anger, and sadness in the song much more authentically.
This is a song that I have on several playlists, but I recently started to put it back on constant replay after such current events as the United States’ intervention to curb ISIS/ISIL. It’s just that timeless, and I can definitely relate.
Checkout more amazing songs from great soundtracks!