Deadmau5 Reveals The Surprising Way His Exclusive World Of Tanks Blitz Track Came About & Reflects On His Passion For Music And Gaming

World of Tanks Blitz hits different this holiday season with the inclusion of legendary DJ and EDM producer Joel Zimmerman, best known as deadmau5, who is bringing his beats to party with tankers worldwide through December 26. On November 26, deadmau5 dropped an exclusive track, "Familiars," as a prelude to his month-long collaboration with Wargaming's free-to-play action tank game. The holiday event not only infuses the artist's music into the gameplay, but also offers special skins, collectibles, and even a custom deadmau5-inspired controller tank.

Critically acclaimed in his field and extremely popular to boot, deadmau5 can easily be considered the most influential electronic music producer of all time. But in addition to his multiple Grammy nominations and well-received collaborations with other artists, he has become immersed in the world of video games. Prior to his current event with World of Tanks Blitz, created a custom soundtrack from Dota 2, was a playable character in Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff's "PeterPalooza," and participated in a multi-part concert for Fortnite: Battle Royale.

Related World Of Tanks Continues Its Festive Tradition With Yet Another Action Movie Hero For Holiday Ops 2025 'Tis the season to be merry, festive, and explosive as Holiday Ops 2025 arrives in World of Tanks with Santa, presents, and armored tanks for all.

ScreenRant interviewed deadmau5 about his personal history with video games, and how his passion for them collided with his love of music early on. The iconic DJ also shared what attracts him to MMO games like World of Tanks Blitz, and why some fans might be surprised by how his exclusive track "Familiars" actually came about. For these topics and much more, read the full interview below or watch the video.

A Rundown Of deadmau5’s History With Music In Video Games

“My first collection of timeless soundtracks were things like Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Paperboy.”

ScreenRant: I read that Castlevania inspired some of your music. Can you talk about some of the games you grew up with, your relationship with them, and how that evolution has infused with your music?

deadmau5: Gaming for me started with Atari 1200 and 2600, and then onto the better, higher-end Commodores. But these were little monophonic speakers, so music in gaming wasn't really a big thing at all. It was some blips and bloops and stuff like that. There were some little edge cases in Atari games where there would be a little tune or something, but that's as far as it went. But then music in gaming started with the Nintendo Entertainment System; the first one for the younger kids out there. It was the big box one, not the one with the little blue reset switches. Anyway, that had incorporated a better FM frequency modulation chip in the game itself that allowed for a polyphonic sound, or multiple notes being played at the same time. Then we started to come into the video game OST world, where Castlevania had a theme and Legend of Zelda had a theme, and music started to take hold in video gaming. That was really cool for me because I was inherently passionate about music and video games. When they both came together in my lifetime, it was like, “Wow, this is the best of both things that I love.” But soundtracks in video games and music in video games in general were very primitive in their compositional sense. Of course, this was in an era when rock bands and pop bands and all that stuff could do really cohesive, big, bright-sounding audio, [while] the technology in video games could not even come close to being able to reproduce or rerecord that kind of music. It was all about the optimization game. That's what got me interested in programming and learning all these things to make music with video game engines, video game methodology, and stuff like that. So, it's been a trip. My first collection of timeless soundtracks were things like Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Paperboy.

How World Of Tanks Blitz Joined Forces With deadmau5

“I like tanks; that's what drew me in.”

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ScreenRant: Speaking of the game we're here for, what drew you into the World of Tanks series?

deadmau5: Tanks! I like tanks; that's what drew me in. I am a fan of any kind of team battle royale sport, or survival of the fittest kind of thing, where there's a big open area and you get to either walk around or drive around. But actually, more often than not, you're just some biped player controller running around shooting and eliminating other people from the server, and that's all fun and great. But the tank thing is kind of fun because it's got that slow calculated human movement. Not like a car, which is way too fast. It's just got that nice controlled feeling of positioning yourself in a spot like you would if you were walking, but you're a freaking tank, so you're shooting 50-millimeter mortars at dudes instead of little pellets and then trying to grind 'em down. Blowing stuff up.

ScreenRant: How did this collaboration come about? Can you talk about the vibe of this game and your music together?

deadmau5: How it came about is, as many things and pretty much everything in my life does, is in my inbox. “Hey, dude!” Or through a LinkedIn plug or something. I’ve got my hands in a lot of pies, and I'm always on the road traveling and doing stuff, so I try to seek out a lot of opportunities myself. But more often than not, if I'm being perfectly honest, they just kind of get funneled into management, and they're like, “Hey, do you like this?” And I'm like, “Yeah, I love it. Let's nibble at that and make that work.” I think it was one of those.

You can learn more about World of Tanks Blitz's deadmau5 event on their website here.

ScreenRant: Something that I absolutely love about the gaming community is some of these big events, and you're very familiar with these events. Can you talk about hosting the World of Tanks Blitz holiday celebration, and what excites you the most about that event?

deadmau5: Truth be told, I've been in front of audiences before and have done public engagement as one does as a DJ and stuff like that. I think what I'm more interested in is seeing the best of the best and how they do it, in terms of the gameplay and stuff like that. So, that'll be pretty exciting to see because I would do that sometimes. I entered into a pro-PUBG tournament once, and these kids are psycho. I'm old, I'm 42, my muscle memory's just gone – and I would go and compete in these things and suck. But just to get your ass kicked by someone that really knows what they're doing and then to know how they did it, it's just cool. It's kind of like me getting on the other end of what I'm doing at a show. I see people having a great time, and then I'm just up there like, “What's the big deal? I've been doing this for 25 years.” And I'm like, “Oh, okay, I get it.”

ScreenRant: I read that you look at doing these events almost like a GM would for sports, putting on these bigger shows, and I've been to some of these things and they're so exciting to watch. I love just watching people play these games. Can you talk about what excites you about these events in general?

deadmau5: Well, almost exactly what you said. I love being there, and I love watching, but I'm going to have the best seat in the house. I think that's really the excitement for me.

The Evolution Of deadmau5’s World Of Tanks Blitz Track & His Experience With Music In Gaming

“I tend to not finish tracks more than I do actually finish them and put them out there.”

ScreenRant: You're one of the most iconic artists in the world and made such an impact with your music. How do you infuse your music and sound into World of Tank Blitz, and what can you tell us about the exclusive tracks you've composed for it?

deadmau5: Well, the tracks were kind of half-started. I have a really extensive library of things. I have a certain community of super fans that probably know this, but I tend to not finish tracks more than I do actually finish them and put them out there. This was just one of those things where it was just like, “Hey, and as per this, which you're already on board and excited for, we would love an exclusive track.” And so I'm like, “Okay, I got you.” And then I just kind went in and had a listen to a few of them and thought, “Okay, you know what? This one kind of lends itself to tanky stuff, so I'll finish it off, provide the stamps, and then we can somehow merge it into the gameplay.” So I thought that would be pretty cool.

ScreenRant: When you play the game yourself, does that inspire some of the music that you'd like to infuse with things like this?

deadmau5: Real answer? Not really, honestly. God bless all these games and other respective soundtracks, especially the ones that go out and spend $15 or $16 million on the [best] orchestra and go to East West audio to record it. First thing I do when I start playing a game is go to the options and mute the music. That's a really bad take for the guy that's sitting here like, “Yeah, I love music in games.” Mute! It is probably just a me thing, but I find music distracting. Not because it takes away from anything, because I tend to, when the soundtrack's really good – let's just go back to Elden Ring, right? That's an amazing score all done up properly. It's not some guy with a romper in a studio in Santa Clara. It's legit. It's amazing music. But I find when that boss music comes on, I tend to be thinking about it while I'm getting my ass whooped by Godfrey or whoever, and I'm just like, “S--t, I was listening to the sound cues.” So, music in games is not good [for me] because I tend to focus way too much on the music instead of on the gameplay, and it's a little distracting. I just don't to music anymore like I used to. I was thinking about this last night actually, that when I was 14 or 15 and was just getting into early electronic music, I would be up in bed and just listening to that. I'd be in a trance and all that, and it was great. It’s really weird. That's when I understood that music takes you places and invokes all these thoughts; it brings back memories and all that s--t. Now, when I listen to it? It's like, “I wonder what synth that is.” “Oh, he's really over-compressed that,” or, “Yeah, that could be a little louder.” I'm giving mixed advice even to my own s--t, you know what I mean? I tend to overanalyze stuff. So, music in games for me is a little tough. I can't shut off [the critical side]. It's too late. It's like it's drilled in like a core implant. It's like you're watching a movie, and you really enjoy it, but then you watch a YouTube video on all the continuity errors. You're like, “Holy s--t, that was bad. But I never noticed that because I wasn't looking.” If you watch Gladiator and then a 777's flying over the f--king battle, you never would've noticed that until someone went, “Um, actually.. Someone shut that guy's brain off. It sucks.” It's ruining it, and I don't want to ruin it.

ScreenRant: Not only will we be hearing your music, but the shop will include deadmau5 style tanks, skins, and icons. What excites you the most about those items?

deadmau5: What excites me most about the skins and items and assets that are going into the game is that World of Tank Blitz is kind of an offshoot of the main franchise. They're kind like, “Hey, let's get weird with tanks.” You know what I mean? Versus the armchair style, I think World of Tanks Blitz is more focused on just, “Hey, let's get weird. Let's add Turbo, let's add fun graffiti and all that stuff too.” That loose goosey play while maintaining the fact that it's a tank and not a hover tank – let's not get too weird – has really opened up a lot for artists to come in and design things with our brand and my style. It's been really cool and liberating to be able to have that freedom to do that. Actually, I've preconceived the whole tank thing, even before World of Tanks. I had a music video [called] “monophobia,” and one of the shots is this big, “Hey, let's make a f--king tank in the driveway, just shooting out crap.” We went and found some TurboSquid Tank assets, but then we screwed it all up and made it weird and put Nyan Cat on it and made it blue. And I was like, “That's pretty funny.” So, it kind of lent itself to a World of Tanks Blitz in a way. I bet you there was probably some inspiration drawn from the asset artists on that side who were like, “Okay, yeah, cool. He likes tanks.”

ScreenRant: EDM and World of Tanks Blitz is something I didn't know I needed. How do you think the EDM vibe compliments the World of Tanks Blitz gameplay experience?

deadmau5: I think the mechanical nature of a tank and the way that a tank shoots lend itself to EDM. This is a weird take, but tanks aren't machine guns, right? They're very controlled, contrived things where every movement's predictable, your rate of fire is predictable – that kind of thing. But there are things that you could do in the game that aren't predictable, in terms of the flow of the game, but then that can be said about electronic music as well. There's a very certain steady pace about it; a certain repetition of elements that just kind of recur often too. It would've been, in hindsight, really cool to sync the music with some kind of system in the game that is repetitive, like the gunfire. Because if there's one thing I hate about a tank, it’s that I can't spam, I can't spray and pray. You’ve got to be a little bit more methodical.

Trent Reznor’s Video Game Work Helped Pave The Way for deadmau5’s Musical Journey

“Video games are very different from writing music because you have to play by rules.”

ScreenRant: How has your love of video games influenced your music, and how has that evolved with the games you played?

deadmau5: That's a loaded ass question. It hasn't because music is always evolving on its own, with or without video games. So, that's one thing. I'm passionate about music, so if video games ruin it for me in that department, that’s cool. I'll just put that out of my mind and continue my music-making journey. Because bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry have also inspired me, and all that early Industrial era kept me going. It wasn't until later that they came together, like for example, Nine Inch Nails did some of the sound design on Quake and stuff like that. I have a [buddy who] who working with Trent Reznor on some other stuff while Trent was working on the Quake stuff. I was living vicariously through my buddy because he was in New Orleans producing this album called The Fragile for Nine Inch Nails and, at the same time, Trent was recording foley for Quake for Id Software. He was telling me how pissed off [Trent] was every day because he had to do Grunt drowning, Grunt gargling, and he was smashing keyboards and swearing up and down left and right at the same time, trying to write an album while being a sound designer for video games. Video games are very different from writing music because you have to play by rules and do things methodically and in a certain way to work in a video game engine versus just printing it to tape or CD or making music. It was an exciting notion to see how meticulous you had to be with that. And that started me down the path of, “Maybe that's something I'd like to do for a living.” Being a significant DJ slash mouse-head-wearing guy was not on the table at the time – or ever really was. I wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to be a programmer, and I wanted to make music, but for mediums other than being a rockstar. So, that was interesting.

World of Tanks Blitz Brings deadmau5 Back Full Circle

“Blending my music with the video game world is just a self-fulfillment thing.”

ScreenRant: How competitive are you when it comes to gaming?

deadmau5: [Laughs] Professionally or personally? Personally, I rage sometimes. I like it, and hate it, but I I hate it to the point where I like it.

ScreenRant: Can you talk about blending your music career and the gaming world in such an immersive project?

deadmau5: Blending my music with the video game world is just a self-fulfillment thing, really, because it's no secret I'm passionate about gaming. It's no secret that I'm passionate about music. And then when the two things kind of collide – and it happens often; one could argue I am the most video gamified EDM artist of all time. I am sure that's a fact, and that's not coincidentally because I've found a niche. It's just two things I love, and they just go harmoniously together. I love doing these collaborations with franchises.

ScreenRant: Are there any particular tips or advice that you'd give to participating players at your event?

deadmau5: You know what? It's all about the teamwork. I think it’s separating that one idiot from the herd and just beaten up on his ass, and moving on to the next. Rinse and repeat. I've been playing it a little bit, though I can't say I'm a vetted World of Tanks Blitz player, but I will be after this. But it's finding the weak gazelle and getting rid of him, and then the second weakest. And then the guy that's just moving all over the place, you just save them for last. But it definitely is about ganging up on a guy.

ScreenRant: What is something that you'd like to see for the gaming community going forward?

deadmau5: Better outreach to the gaming community and stuff like that. Maybe even in-game. I remember saving demos of matches of Counterstrike; you could record a demo in Counterstrike one-to-one, so your local machine or the server would record the telemetry. I wish more developers would bring that back, but in a live sense. Meaning that, if you're watching a PUBG tournament, you're watching just some announcers – and you need that – and the players and all that stuff, and then switching from preconceived camera angles and stuff like that. Instead of that, broadcast the game telemetry to a client so I can explore the game myself from a spectator, you know what I mean? In engine, it's totally doable. It's just nobody really does it, and I can't imagine why not, other than just the demand isn't there. But I think the demand isn't there because people aren't aware that that technology is totally doable. [It would] be cool to see real-time telemetry in your game engine or in your client. ScreenRant: Where do you see the future of gaming going? Cause I feel like it's endless, obviously. deadmau5: I don't know, but unfortunately I see it being homogenized into 5 to 10 major publishers, and that's about it. All the indies are getting f--ked, but I would love to see more indie-quality games come out. [But] I can't give a good answer on that; I don't know. I'm just but a vessel for riding the tanks. [Laughs]

World of Tanks Blitz is running their “deadmau5 in the House” event through December 26.

In addition to the fusion of deadmau5's exclusive tracks with gameplay, tankers will have access to exclusive content, collectibles, and prizes including but not limited to:

mau5tank, a custom deadmau5 controller tank loaded with music-making gear, speakers, lights, and laser effects

unique camos, one of which – Blink camo – was inspired by deadmau5’s infamous Nyanborghini Purracan

3 exclusive masks featuring deamau5’ mau5head silhouette with special designs

2 new deadmau5-themed quests

Source: Screen Rant Plus