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Matty Healy is as busy gaming as he is making a new 1975 album – and he wants to play with fans
He's also hopped on the current gaming bandwagon.
Danny Jones -
13th February 2026 
Lots of us have had some version of a ‘stuck in a room playing videogames until 3am’ period in our lives, but it turns out The 1975 frontman Matty Healy is having his right now, only right in the middle of making the band’s next album, and the game in question is ARC Raiders.
For the non-gamers among you, or even the more casual amongst you who mainly stick to the likes of Call of Duty or FIFA (sorry, EA FC*), you’ll be forgiven if you haven’t heard of ARC Raiders yet.
As for those of you who still regularly sweat it out in online lobbies, either with the boys or solo – this online shooter has quickly proved ideal for either – chances are you’ve at least considered buying it if you’re not already a ridiculous level.
Well, as it turns out, Matty Healy is one of those people, as the local lead singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer says he’s been spending most nights staying up very late in and around recording sessions on the next 1975 outing. More than that, he wants to play with fans.
Hellooo arc raiders
by u/TrumanBlackOG in the1975
That’s right, whilst he insists that the group are hard at work on their sixth studio LP, he’s also been spending a lot of time playing the third-person multiplayer game “religiously” and getting very little sleep.
In fact, as you can see in the post above, it almost been part of this album’s lifecycle and the music-making process, much to even Healy’s own surprise.
Positioned and already being reviewed as one of the best extraction advantages ‘ever’, the game by Embark Studios over in Stockholm, Sweden, is just the second-ever title by the studio, having previously made the FPS (first-person shooter) The Finals, which released early after ARC Raiders was delayed.
It’s taken the development team nearly seven years to create the game, which was initially teased as an even more ambitious project as early as 2021, and this also included a major rework after they realised they weren’t getting the kind of single-player or co-op experience they had been aiming for.
And that back-to-the-drawing-board step certainly seemed to pay off, as not only was it the most searched game of 2025, but it is already holding over 6 million weekly players online so far this year – and the Wilmslow musician is one of them.
The 36-year-old, opinionated and often opinion-splitting performer is certainly no stranger to roping in various pop culture references and aesthetics into his art, but we can’t think of many other examples where he’s made a nod to gaming. For now, this is literally as much as we have on the next ’75 LP:
— Dirty Hit (@DirtyHit) January 21, 2026
Nevertheless, if you want to try and kill a few hours between instalments in their discography and you happen to dabble in the joysticks and/or a mouse and keyboard from time to time, then we’d keep an eye on that Reddit thread for updates.
Healy mentioned that he obviously doesn’t want to flood rounds and his own network with loads of traffic, but he is asking for feedback on how to make raiding the post-apocalyptic wastelands with fans possible very soon.
As much as we’d relish a famous Northerner to team up with (yes, we’re hooked as well), we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind him to GET ON WITH IT and finish this album already, as Being Funny in a Foreign Language feels like forever ago.
This is the kind of stuff we’ve been busy filling our days with whilst waiting for the next 1975 drop…
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Featured Images — Pedro Mora (via 500px)/Markus Maier (via WikiCommons)/Embark Studios
