The Wall Street Journal (!) recently highlighted Nikola Tesla’s appearance in Dark Void as a sign of his growing popularity with “hip techies” in the 21st century. His number of appearances in the film and tech industry has been growing steadily (The Prestige, Tesla Motors, Nvidia Tesla Products, and now Dark Void) and his name has become more recognizable among tech circles. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Michaels writes :

Tesla has been rediscovered by technophiles, including Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page, who frequently cites him as an early inspiration. And Teslamania is going increasingly mainstream.

Tesla, in short, is cool.

“Edison is so 20th century, much like Henry Ford,” says Bernie Carlson, a professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Virginia.

As Dark Void approaches its launch date, let us not forget how important of a role Nikola Tesla plays for main character Will. After all, he is Will’s jet pack provider and more:

Creators of the Dark Void videogame needed a mentor for their hero, Will, who falls from our world into a parallel realm ruled by sinister aliens bent on annihilating humans.

“We quickly decided that tapping into the conspiracies and geek mystique built up around Nikola Tesla would be awesome,” says senior producer Morgan Gray. “What is cooler than having Tesla reverse-engineer alien technology to build weapons of super science?”

Check out the video above for some more information on just how Tesla fits into Dark Void.

And be sure to grab your copy when Dark Void is released for the 360, PS3, and PC on January 19th!