Double Fine Makes Brutal Legend Free for 666 Minutes to Honor Tim Curry

A Tribute Measured in Minutes and Metal

Double Fine Productions is sending off Tim Curry the only way a heavy metal game studio really could. Following the actor’s death on August 26 at the age of 80, the studio made Brutal Legend free to download and own on PC for exactly 666 minutes, with the window closing at 3:06am PT / 6:06am ET on Thursday, August 27. The game is available through Double Fine’s itch.io page.

“Rest in peace, dark prince,” the company wrote in the listing. Short, fitting, and hard to argue with.

Curry voiced Doviculus, the central villain of Tim Schafer’s 2009 heavy metal strategy game. Doviculus is a demon emperor who leads an army of Tainted Coil warriors, and Curry brought the character a theatrical menace that felt custom-built for a game steeped in Black Sabbath album art and Eddie imagery. It turned out to be one of the more memorable villain performances in games from that era, even if the title itself flew under the radar for some players.

What the Game Was, and What Critics Said

Brutal Legend was never easy to describe. Part action game, part real-time strategy, part love letter to heavy metal culture, it starred Jack Black as roadie Eddie Riggs who gets transported to a fantasy world built entirely from metal mythology. Schafer’s writing ran through every inch of it.

IGN’s Daemon Hatfield gave it a 9 out of 10 at launch. “Brutal Legend is a tour de force that wraps up humor, music, and clever gameplay into one highly polished package,” Hatfield wrote, according to the IGN review. “You haven’t played a game quite like this before and won’t want to miss it.” That kind of score, from that era of IGN coverage, meant something.

Tim Curry’s Gaming Resume

Brutal Legend was far from Curry’s only stop in gaming. As reported by IGN, he also appeared in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, back when full-motion video cutscenes were a genuine selling point for strategy games. He voiced characters in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Dragon Age: Origins. For a generation of PC gamers, his voice showed up at unexpected corners of their libraries.

Curry was, of course, far more widely known outside gaming. His role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show has kept him a cult fixture for decades. But the gaming connections were real, deep, and genuinely beloved by the players who encountered them.

Double Fine’s Second Act

The timing of this tribute is meaningful beyond the loss itself. Double Fine recently regained the rights to its full catalog after Microsoft parted ways with the studio during what has been described as an “Xbox reset,” as reported by IGN. The studio is now operating independently again, and it has already announced plans to revive the Amnesia Fortnight game jam as it figures out what comes next.

Being able to put Brutal Legend on itch.io and give it away freely, on the developer’s own terms, within hours of Curry’s death is exactly the kind of gesture that only works when a studio actually controls its own work. The rights question that had followed Brutal Legend around for years suddenly resolved itself into something meaningful.

Six hundred and sixty-six minutes is barely eleven hours. Whether you grabbed it in time or not, the number itself says everything about how well Double Fine understood the assignment.