Remembering David Bowie’s star role in a 1999 video game
Many facets of David Bowie‘s career can perplex the casual fan. Perhaps the knowledge of his love of mime or his devotion to William S Burroughs’ ‘cut-up technique’ for lyrics may dumbfound the odd listener. However, for diehard fans, finding a new piece of information about Bowie’s life outside of music is a cherishable moment. One such moment happened to me when I stumbled across his video game ‘Omikron’.
Before the conspiracy theorists get their motors running, unlike the power of the internet, Bowie didn’t predict the rise of Coronavirus through the world of gaming. Instead, Omikron is the Greek word for “little o”. With that preposterous notion quickly swept away, we can get back to the equally ludicrous proposition of Bowie having a starring role in the release of a video game.
Omikron: The Nomad Soul, the fantasy adventure game, sees Bowie pick up a starring role in the action. Released in 1999, it came around the same time that Bowie was waking up the population to the extensive power of the internet. Not only did he used to lurk in chat rooms and speak with his fans — showcasing the accessibility to stardom that now seems a permanent feature — but he even released his own Internet Service Provider, bowie.net.
So, it’s not such a huge leap of faith to believe that Bowie would invest his time into such a project. He was a naturally curious artist and, unlike his contemporaries from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, was happy to allow the internet to infiltrate his work. When given the opportunity to play a part in the new game, Bowie jumped at the chance and grabbed his bandmate Reeves Gabrels to score the music for the PC game, which went on to be nominated as the best PC game of the year.
The duo produced ten original songs for the game, having beaten the competition to take charge of the project, including Björk and Massive Attack, who had been on the list that producer David Cage had sent to the makers of the game. However, that wasn’t the only involvement Bowie had. He was also given the opportunity to portray a character in the swirling city of Omikron.
Bowie portrayed the character of Boz as well as the lead singer of an in-game band, a few sets of which you can watch below. Gabrels and another bowie collaborator, Gail Ann Dorsey, also lent their likenesses to the game. The trio spent 30 hours completing motion capture for each of the shows, and Bowie seemed content that he achieved his goal of providing “emotional subtext” to the game. The singer even went on Conan O’Brien to talk about the game, clearly enamoured with the proposition. “I didn’t create it, it was created by the French, so there are a lot of strip bars, red-light districts, smooching couples, gorgeous women […] It’s quite fantastic.”
Dive into Omikron: The Nomad Soul, below as we bring you David bowie via computer graphics from the last century.
