[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ theme_builder_area=”post_content” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_code module_class=”custom-cat” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Bowie\u2019s experimental, tech-fixated \u201990s ended with him inside a digitised dystopia. And as its co-creator Phil Campbell reveals, he nearly stayed there. By Danny Eccleston<\/strong>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/01\/Bowie-Omikron-picture.jpg” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” title_text=”Bowie Omikron picture” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n David Bowie was never meant to be in Omikron: The Nomad Soul. In fact, he would never even have recorded a note of music for it if it had been solely up to its creator, French video game auteur David Cage.<\/p>\n \u201cCage\u2019s list of bands went Bj\u00f6rk, Radiohead, Future Sound Of London, Garbage,\u201d Omikron\u2019s Portrush-bred Senior Designer Phil Campbell tells MOJO today. \u201cI threw Bowie on there because I\u2019d been in the fan club since I was 11 \u2013 and I knew he would complement the world we were creating.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1998, Cage\u2019s company Quantic Dream had partnered with Campbell\u2019s employers Eidos \u2013 the makers of Tomb Raider \u2013 to develop one of the world\u2019s first \u2018open world\u2019 games: an alternate reality to explore, run about, to shoot and get shot in. Entering the game, you could be reincarnated as various trapped souls in a mythical dystopia bossed by enigmatic demons whose hegemony you strove to battle and escape. With its complex and mystical back story and regeneration mechanic, it sounds like exactly the computer game you\u2019d expect David Bowie to be in. But that was never the plan.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we went to meet him, it was just about licensing his old music,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cBut he loved David Cage\u2019s vision for Omikron \u2013 that you were sucked into this world; the themes of oppression and being awakened \u2013 and he loved [art director] Lo\u00efc Normand\u2019s visuals. The next meeting he brought Iman and Joe [aka Duncan\/Zowie]. Then he brought Reeves Gabrels.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of licensing his music, Bowie stunned Campbell by saying he wanted to write new songs, and to better embed in Omikron he joined the creative team for two weeks in a Paris apartment, smoking cigarette after cigarette of Campbell\u2019s. \u201cI saw the computer program he used to do his William Burroughs lyric cut-ups on,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cHe said, \u2018I used to do it manually but now I have this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Bowie\u2019s unexpected immersion in the project fuelled creativity. They devised an in-game rock band called The Dreamers based on Bowie, Gabrels and Bowie band bassist Gail-Ann Dorsey. Playing the game, you could stumble on any of three concerts they performed, showcasing Bowie\u2019s three new showstoppers: Seven, Survive and The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell. Virtual Reeves was half-man, half-guitar, the vocalist a willowy young fellow with a mask that had slipped up onto the top of his head. \u201cWe were talking about this young singer,\u201d Campbell recalls of one brainstorming session, \u201cand Bowie said, \u2018He could almost be David Jones\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Team Bowie\u2019s involvement did not end there. One of the \u2018souls\u2019 you could play as was a polygonal representation of Iman. Another character was Boz: a kind of living computer hologram who led Omikron\u2019s resistance movement, The Awakened. If you were lucky enough to encounter him and harvest his advice, you\u2019d find he looked, and sounded, rather familiar. \u201cI can\u2019t remember when it was decided that Boz should be Bowie,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cIt might just have been us pushing our luck. But he was super-super on-board. We put him through the indignity of having dots stuck all over his face for the motion capture. He\u2019d never done that before.\u201d<\/p>\n But there was another shock in store for Campbell, one that promised huge repercussions for Omikron and for Bowie \u2013 his future and his past.<\/p>\n \u201cOne day David said, could he leave his Bowie persona in Omikron, and come out as David Jones?,\u201d says Campbell, still reeling slightly, 20 years on. \u201cIt was a delicious thought \u2013 did he crave the anonymity of that? \u2013 and it fitted the spirit of the game: Omikron was a giant trap, you could lose your soul in there forever.\u201d<\/p>\n However that might have worked, it would have been killer marketing for Omikron \u2013 and another baffling Bowie story for a press still scratching their heads over his recent immersion in drum\u2019n\u2019bass or his fixation on this new-fangled internet. But Omikron did not become the final resting place of David Jones\u2019s longest-running persona. As Campbell concedes, it wasn\u2019t a big enough hit \u2013 no Tomb Raider, no Ziggy Stardust.<\/p>\n \u201cIt did OK,\u201d he says. \u201cIt sold about 600,000 units in the end, but 500,000 of those were in Europe. It got no press in America. David did some chat shows \u2013 Letterman would show the box. But something about it didn\u2019t gel enough for people even to try it. I think David was a bit pissed off.\u201d<\/p>\n There was an afterlife for Omikron\u2019s songs, which resurfaced, with some adjustments, on Bowie\u2019s 1999 album, hours\u2026, the game\u2019s \u2018theme\u2019 song retooled as New Angels Of Promise, the album\u2019s cover (floppy haired \u201999 Bowie cradles goateed \u201997 Bowie as per the Piet\u00e0) revisiting Omikron\u2019s regeneration theme. And Bowie and Campbell continued to meet up for the odd brainstorm, like the one in around 2000. \u201cWe talked about buying up a bunch of old satellites that were circling the earth,\u201d says Campbell, \u201cand he was going to relaunch Ziggy Stardust from space. The idea was that Ziggy would beam us transmissions \u2013 \u2018Are you receiving me\u2026?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n And there was an epilogue. In January 2016, on the night Bowie died, Omikron: The Nomad Soul was released for free, everywhere. \u201cOf course it\u2019s so hard to play with modern technology,\u201d says Campbell, \u201cbut people were playing it. You know, there\u2019s a lot of retrospective love for Omikron and Bowie\u2019s role in it. People still send letters about doing a sequel. It was so hyper-ambitious \u2013 in some ways the perfect game for Bowie. He was always about doing something different.\u201d.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bowie\u2019s experimental, tech-fixated \u201990s ended with him inside a digitised dystopia. And as its co-creator Phil Campbell reveals, he nearly stayed there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“One day David said, could he leave his Bowie persona in Omikron, and come out as David Jones?,”<\/h2>\n