In ‘Ludens’ BMTH are performing in the world inhabited by weird creatures, “homoludens”

“We’re not homosapiens, we’re homoludens”, can be the motto of the new, action-filled music video for ‘Ludens’, released today by Bring Me The Horizon. The video game Death Stranding: Timefall and its soundtrack came out last week, including BMTH’s ‘Ludens’. Recorded in only five days, it’s the first new song from the band since album amo of January 2019.

‘Ludens’ was recorded as a special soundtrack for Death Stranding: Timefall (Original Music from the world of Death Stranding). The world premiere of this Playstation 4 video game was released on November 8. The plot of the game takes us to the future of the United States, where a series of explosions resulted in supernatural events known as the Death Stranding.

Be sure to watch the new BMTH video below.

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But who the hell are ludens and why does your Google Translate app give you a big fat nothing when you look up this word in any language? Vocalist Oli Sykes attempted to explain the meaning of the word ‘luden’ in a recent interview with NME, suggesting it corresponds to a Latin word for ‘player’:

“I wanted it to be connected to the video game, but I didn’t want to sing directly about that. I looked at Kojima’s whole ethos, went on his website, and as it was loading it came up with this thing that said, ‘We’re not homosapiens, we’re homoludens.’ It’s latin for ‘player’”, he said.

However, we did our etymological investigation and found out that ‘luden’ doesn’t really correspond to any Latin word meaning ‘player’. The roots of the word are actually simpler than that. In present-day Slavic languages “ludi/ljudi” (“люди”) stands for “people”. In medieval times in the Slavic language the singular form of the word “human” or “person” was “luden/ljuden” (“людин”), which stems from ancient Greek *leudh– “grow” or “add”. It shares the root with the Latin “liber” (“free”), old-German “liut” and modern German “leute” (“people”).

Essentially, Oli Sykes’ lyrics “We need a new leader / We need a new luden” stand for the search of a new type of humans, new kind of people to bring the planet back to live. Sykes puts the message of hope into this word, saying in the interview that “even if all flowers die and the world is at an endpoint, there would still be hope if there were humans on the planet because we find ways to adapt.”

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‘Death Stranding: Timefall’ Tracklist:

  • “Trigger” Major Laser & Khalid
  • “Ghost” Au/Ra & Alan Walker
  • “Death Stranding” Chvrches
  • “Yellow Box” The Neighbourhood
  • “Meanwhile… In Genova” The S.L.P.
  • “Ludens” Bring Me The Horizon
  • “Born In The Slumber” Flora Cash
  • “Sing To Me” MISSIO

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