I’m way late on this news, as it hit right as I was headed out to Chicago for Pinball Expo 2024. I was so busy at the show that I didn’t get a chance to post about it. Nonetheless, Stern Pinball has announced a remaster for Metallica and it is available to order now. Let’s take a look…
Metallica Remastered – The Cabinet
As mentioned in the video trailers below section, this a remaster of the 2013 release – same layout, but with new art, redesigned toys, modern electronics, an LCD screen (the OG was dot matrix), and Stern Insider Connected. Thanks to the LED tech, the game is much more reactive to the music/sound than ever before, which is a fitting touch. It is available in two models, Premium and LE:
Word around Pinball Expo (more on that below) is that this is the first of many remasters. Which one do you think is deserving of this treatment (I can already hear TRON being said out there…)?
Metallica Remastered – The Videos
This is all Stern have uploaded on the piece so far, but there is sure to be more sooner than later:
Stern Pinball @ Pinball Expo 2024
Since Metallica Remastered was announced this week during Pinball Expo, it was thought Stern might bring it be there. In the end it wasn’t… at least, until Saturday, by which time they’d snuck both the LE and Premium models in for the final day only. But I had already left the show, so no exclusive photos or footage here sadly. My best guess is they didn’t want it to stomp on X-MEN’s interest particularly much, but I don’t know for sure – if that’s really the case, why announce it so soon still (and in the same week as Pinball Expo at that)? Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to directly ask a Stern employee about it all.
All that said, here’s a tour of their booth from earlier. It’s no surprise that it is much larger and more impressive than what the company does for events like Amusement Expo or IAAPA. For one, it’s in Stern’s backyard, but it’s also a collector/residential focused show. With around 80%+ of pinball buyers coming from that market these days, it makes more financial sense to appeal to them in a show like this than to operators who will quickly pass up a pin in favor of a crane or alley bowler. Of course, there were some there who still keep the pinball flame burning on location, but the flip in appeal is simply reality here…
A more complete post on Pinball Expo will be up next week – stay tuned to the Arcade Heroes video channel for more. In the meantime, what do you think of Metallica Remastered? And once again, which ‘remastered’ pinball pieces would you most like to see next?
