Heavy metal veterans and British institution Iron Maiden just released the video for their new single “Speed of Light” taken from their new album “The Book of Souls”, so why am I writing about that here? I’m writing about it here because the video for “Speed of Light” is one of the best music videos ever and plays like a history of gaming in 5 minutes.
The animated video by ‘Maiden’s Interactive Producer Llexi Leon features the bands long time undead mascot Eddie playing on an arcade machine. Throughout the video there are nods to various iconic games from gaming history of the last few decades filtered through Iron Maiden’s own self referential history. Classic games like Donkey Kong, Mega Man and Mortal Kombat amongst others all get the Maiden treatment as they are remade in the image of some of the bands memorable artwork from their long history.
Check out the video below and see how many references you can spot.