8 Things You Might Have Missed In BTS’s New Game Teaser
On August 21, BTS released the thrilling “Concept Art Teaser” for their highly anticipated new game. The game is based on the HYYH era storyline that inspired a series of BTS music videos, The Notes 1, the Save Me webtoon, and countless fan theories. The teaser is filled with references to all of this, and these are 8 you might have missed.
1. The setting
The teaser opens with all hell breaking loose in an industrial setting. If this place looks familiar, it’s because fans were introduced to it four years ago, in BTS’s 2015 music video for “RUN”.
Similar bulldozers and dilapidated buildings are seen in these two screenshots. The game’s fight scene is most likely taking place in an area of the train yard that fans have not seen before. Moreover, the entire scene appears to be based on the “Epilogue Nightmare” from The Notes, in which this area (and its squatters) are forcibly cleared out for redevelopment.
2. RM’s home
In the trailer, RM runs frantically toward this metal container. It could, in theory, be the same one he calls home, though its front door is on the opposite side.
The “RUN” MV opens with RM walking out of this building, but this place wasn’t revealed to be his living space until Save Me and The Notes came out.
3. The smashed mirror
The smashing of this mirror could be another reference to “RUN” MV.
In the music video, Suga smashes this mirror (and the smeraldo flowers’ reflection) while fighting with Jungkook.
The breaking mirror symbolizes a sudden break between BTS’s multiple realities in the BTS Universe. In “RUN”, this is shown through contrasting the scene of partying with Jungkook being all alone.
It’s probably no coincidence that the game producers chose this moment to transition between real BTS footage and the fictional game art.
4. Suga’s absence
In the BTS Universe, Suga is arguably the hardest member to save. In the “Euphoria” MV, Jungkook rescues an unconscious Suga from the fire, but in Save Me, Jin is the one who does it.
The game teaser shows Jin surrounded by flames, but Suga is nowhere to be seen here. This fire could have nothing at all to do with Suga, since it takes place at the train yard, but since Suga and fire are so closely connected, one has to wonder…
5. This fateful climb
In on stage: prologue, V climbs to the top of this structure and jumps off.
In “Euphoria” MV, Jin goes back in time and changes V’s fate by taking his place.
The game teaser shows two figures on the same structure. They are most-likely Jin and V, but if not, this scene could be hinting at yet another twist in time.
6. The trains
Trains have appeared in several BTS music videos, most notably “I Need U”, “RUN”, and “Spring Day”.
Here the video game version of Jin is surrounded by floating train wreckage. The trains look extremely similar to the ones in “I Need U” MV.
7. This painting
BTS loves their classical art references! The teaser shows Jin gazing at Théodore Géricault‘s painting, “The Raft of the Medusa” (“Le Radeau de la Méduse”).
The Medusa was a French naval frigate from the Napoleonic Wars. It survived many naval battles, but met its end when it wrecked on a sandbank in 1816. Of approximately 150 passengers, only 10 survived. The painting was inspired by survivor accounts.
This game scene may also be referencing this shot from the “Blood, Sweat, & Tears” MV.
8. The Interior Room
Who knew so much could be happening in a single shot? This scene is straight out of The Notes 1. In one of Jin’s entries, he describes his (fictional) father’s study and his mysterious “interior room”. The interior room could very well be the place where BTS finds the “Map of the Soul” that “opens the future” in the game.
