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Sometimes, a meme is such a perfect fit for another piece of media that its creators can’t help but bring the two together. Bandai Namco is the latest to seize the moment, as a new trailer for the upcoming Sand Land has implemented a very popular dance tune–with a very fitting name–from the late 1990s.
The trailer shows Beelzebub, the pink devil-like hero of the game, as he fights monsters and giant bugs both with his bare hands and with custom-made vehicles. The background music is Sandstorm, the popular trance song released by Finnish DJ Darude in late 1999.
Sandstorm was the first single released from Darude’s album Before The Storm, which was first released in Finland in 1999 before hitting shelves in the US in September 2000. The single reached platinum status–which means it sold over 1 million copies–in the US.
The song has since become an inside joke on streaming services like Twitch, in which any streamer asking what background music they should use would immediately be answered with “Darude – Sandstorm.” For April Fools’ Day in 2015, YouTube answered any music-related search with “Did you mean Darude – Sandstorm By Darude” to play off of this joke.
Sand Land is an action-RPG adaptation of a manga series of the same name by the late Akira Toriyama, which appeared in Shonen Jump Magazine in the year 2000. The game follows the aforementioned Beelzebub and Rao as they set off using vehicles, unique fighting skills, and more in order to find new sources of water in a vast desert.
Sand Land launches April 26 on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. A demo is available now.
