Devil's Gate Music
Related Articles
Making another major move and breaking down walls once again, the Swedish masters of heavy metal SABATON have joined forces with leading historically accurate naval multiplayer game, World of Warships, and released a brand new single and music video entitled ‘Yamato’ — available in-game and on all DSPs now. It is being released by Better Noise Music on the heels of 2025’s Legends, which marked SABATON’s first album for the label. ‘Crossing The Rubicon’ (feat. Nothing More) from the album was also the band’s first-ever Top 10 single on the Billboard Rock Chart.
This song notably marks the second World of Warships collaboration between the band and developer Wargaming following the mega-popular ‘Bismarck’. For the first time, a SABATON-branded Yamato is also available in World of Warships in addition to dialogue by vocalist Joakim Brodén and bassist Pär Sundström. Along with different bespoke items in game, Brodén can take the helm of the ship while the standard battle soundtrack replaced by ‘Yamato’ or ‘Bismarck’, transforming every engagement into an epic metal experience.
Stream ‘Yamato’ here
As history will tell you, “Yamato” was the name of a massive Japanese battleship constructed in-secret and unveiled during 1941 as the most dominant vessel of its kind. Designed to win at naval warfare, it represented the ultimate floating symbol of strength. In 1945, it famously hit the high seas on a suicide mission to defend Okinawa. Despite ceaseless fire from aircraft above and an opposing fleet of a far greater number on the water, the “Yamato” and its crew never gave up. Instead, they literally battled until the bitter end when a huge explosion rendered a deathblow to the ship. It sank in a blaze of glory…
As part of the alliance with World of Warships and Wargaming, the band filmed the accompanying music video in Belgrade, Serbia last October. Quite fittingly, it depicts SABATON aboard the titular ship during its last stand, descending into the unforgiving ocean as the band hangs on for dear life. Waves consume the deck, but each member keeps playing his instrument even as the chaos swallows the guys up one-by-one.
Testing their mettle in real-life, the musicians faced brutally frigid temperatures, weathering a continuous blast of ice-cold water for the duration of the shoot. The band remained submerged in freezing waters with the help of ventilators. Pushing it to the max, the guys even wore weights beneath their stage clothes to truly evoke the sensation of sinking. Maintaining the highest level of safety protocol, professional divers assisted SABATON throughout.
About the track, vocalist Joakim Brodén states:
“Battleships are interesting and naval stories have, from time to time, been part of the SABATON lore. ‘Bismarck’ was an exciting story for us to share and a fan favourite, and ‘Yamato’ is sort of a follow-up to that song. Our former guitarist, Tommy, wrote this song while he was still in the band. We only ‘Thobbefied’ it after guitar duties were returned to Thobbe!”
Bassist Pär Sundström adds:
“‘Bismarck’ was such an exciting song but it was never part of an album, and it felt that it was missing something. We always wanted to follow up on that story. Over the years, countless fans have asked us to write a song about ‘Yamato’, and we knew that that would be a natural continuation of what we started with ‘Bismarck’. We knew we wanted this song to have a totally different sound, and when Tommy was writing the music for this, we felt we had the appropriate, powerful song for this story. Once again, we are collaborating with World of Warships, and since our worlds are so close, it just feels so natural to continue this great partnership. Together, we once again created a legendary music video!”
The band had previously partnered with World Of Warships and Wargaming for ‘Bismarck’ in 2019. Among the most popular tunes in SABATON’s catalogue, the latter has garnered more than 116.8 million Spotify streams to date, while the gripping music video has tallied over 107 million views and counting. Landing plugs from Metal Insider, Blabbermouth, Ghost Cult Magazine, and more, Revolver Magazine praised, “SABATON has made a career by writing kickass hooks about extremely specific moments of military history, and between Wargaming’s world-class attention to detail and the band’s artillery nerdom, this was a match made in heaven.”
Stay tuned for more news and announcements from SABATON coming soon.
ABOUT SABATON:
In more than two decades since the band’s launch, SABATON has headlined major festivals, sold-out arena concerts worldwide and gained a legion of loyal fans by carving out a reputation for being one of the hardest working bands in the business. Since their 2005 debut album, they’ve earned Gold, Platinum, and multi-Platinum certifications in territories around the world with their eleven studio albums. They’ve also had eight albums score Top 10 international chart status, and six claim the Top 5. The band has earned eight Metal Hammer/Golden Gods Awards nominations, taking home the award for ‘Breakthrough Artist’ in 2011 and ‘Best Live Band’ in three different years, and a Grammis nomination (Swedish equivalent to the U.S. GRAMMY) as Best Heavy Metal Band.
In 2008, SABATON hosted the first edition of its annual, three-day music festival, SABATON Open Air, in Sweden. The year after, the highly popular SABATON Cruise was introduced, which sails out of Stockholm each year for epic sea adventures and live acts. A pivotal point in the band’s history was the debut of the SABATON History Channel in 2019, which uses the power of music and storytelling to dive into the stories behind every song with documentary-style videos.
In March 2022, the band’s tenth studio album The War To End All Wars dropped, revisiting WW1 and featuring eleven songs. To conclude the band’s chapter on the First World War, the quintet released an EP trilogy on 30th September 2022, entitled Echoes Of The Great War. The band embarked on The Tour To End All Tours and The Great Swedish Tour in 2022/2023. In April 2023, the band was recognised by the Swedish Skeptics Association with the highly regarded ‘Enlightener of the Year Award’, making SABATON the first ever rock band to receive such an honour.
In June 2023, SABATON launched History Rocks, a global museum charity project which revolved around the band’s new animated film, The War To End All Wars – The Movie, which was screened in 140 museums around the world. The film was later released on major video streaming services in May 2025. In 2024, SABATON celebrated the global premiere of their concert film SABATON – The Tour To End All Tours. They continued to embark on The Legendary Tour 2025, before releasing their eleventh studio album Legends in October 2025.
Ultimately, SABATON refuses to be slotted into a genre. Fans need only know them as SABATON, the heavy metal band that sings of real-life wars and the people who played a part in them; true stories more fantastic than any fiction.
ABOUT WORLD OF WARSHIPS:
World of Warships is a free, historical, online combat PC game from Wargaming. With its massive fleet of most iconic war vessels, including five different ship classes and strategically designed environment, World of Warships provides the ultimate naval warfare gaming experience, suitable for everyone. Thanks to its largest collection of historically accurate ships available to play, World of Warships prides itself as a digital ship museum and a focal point for naval history enthusiasts. New thematic content and innovative game modes are being added on a regular basis, providing a diverse and exciting gameplay to its broad player base.
FOLLOW SABATON
Website || Facebook || Instagram || Spotify || YouTube || X || TikTok
Photo credit: Steve Bright
