The recently released video game Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy from Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal is, of course, absolutely steeped in music. Specifically, ’80s music. While Star-Lord’s taste in music typically skews more towards metal and rock, the game does actually include “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley as a particularly effective troll: Rickrolling players for picking a bad choice.
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A promotional video released by the developer shows popular streamers like DrLupo, PaladinAmber, and DanTDM playing through the video game only to initiate a Huddle, a special moment in combat where Star-Lord calls the Guardians in for a pep talk. Huddles present two options, one of which is good and improves morale and gives in-combat boosts while the other is… not great. The promotional video includes the lesser of the two options, and while picking a good option starts some rocking tunes, it would appear that the not-as-good option can sometimes trigger Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” to play, effectively Rickrolling players.
You can check out the promotional video for yourself below:
Rickrolling, if you are somehow not familiar, is essentially tricking people into watching Rick Astley’s music video for the “Never Gonna Give You Up” song. It’s an elder internet meme, and often presents as people sharing something like a link that they say or infer is to something else, but it’s actually the music video. The promotional video includes an additional little bit of Astley dancing from the music video, but the actual in-game version is just the song. In general, Astley seems pretty game about it all.
“It’s kind of strange to have released a song in 1987, and then all those years later it gets a new lease on life that… I don’t think any record producer, writer, artist, anybody could ever even imagine that. Because when we did it, there was no internet,” says Astley in a behind-the-scenes video about the promotional video.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy itself from Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal is now available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch via the cloud, and PC. It’s unclear when the fix on Star-Lord’s costume will come through, but it is coming. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the Marvel-branded video game right here.
Have you had a chance to play Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy yet? Have you found Rick Astley’s infamous song for yourself? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!
