On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, "Voltaic Oceans", It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called "The Stage", a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016 via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.