The late artist Michael Jackson branched out into many other mediums in his career, video games were no exception. From film roles, cameos, his famous discography, it should come as no surprise that the 80s star had been present in video games going back to even its early days.
The late idol was known for being an avid fan of video games, having contributed to the production of many of them long before players were making characters based off of him in Red Dead Online. The star's music can be easily found in most of the music genre games that came out in the early 2010s, from Dance Dance Revolution to Guitar Hero, and has always been a popular choice for karaoke. But rather than just looking at games that have used his music, Jackson's personal involvement with the production of several games over the decades shows how the singer was able to change with the times.
The King of Pop, And All Things Popular
Jackson's film Moonwalker spawned a long series of Sega games staring the performer and some of his songs. This, however, would be far from the last time he would collaborate with the company, nor the last time he would lend his name and image to a project. Michael Jackson in Scramble Training, released in 1993, has Jackson in an FMV sequence that played at the start of the game in the now defunct Sega World arcades where he acts as an instructor to help the player earn their space pilot's license.
Just a year later, Jackson might have worked on the soundtrack to Sonic 3, though the late pop star remains officially uncredited. The singer would go on to work with Sega again in 1999 for Space Channel 5 and Space Channel 5: Part 2 for the Dreamcast, where he would appear onscreen as a future version of himself, having saved Earth from a catastrophe hinted at being the events of Moonwalker. Space Michael is a 541-year-old news reporter and a variety show host who helps the heroine dance her way through the evil aliens to protect the civilians.
After this, Jackson would go quite some time before his next work in gaming, with him not being directly connected to another project until his own dance game, Michael Jackson: The Experience would release in 2010. Similar to other dance games at the time, players would dance to the artist's songs while trying to match the movements of the avatars on screen. Prior to his death, Jackson had even been working on an MMORPG based on his work called Planet Michael, though it was eventually canceled in 2011.
Michael Jackson's legacy is as varied as it is expansive. The artist was well known for his forward-thinking work and his adaptability with evolving trends, the idea that in their peak he would align himself with video games and their development is hardly a stretch. Jackson consistently showed a passion for new ways to push his work and create outside of just the medium of music. His commitment to entertaining the masses and pushing the envelope with his performances is what led to these works that are still enjoyed even decades after the cultural climate that they game from has become little more than a point of nostalgia. He continues to inspire fans, even if only to use character creation to recreate The King of Pop.