From Cyberpunk 2077 to The Witcher 3: Why videogame music matters, told by some of the best composers in the indsutry
Overview & Key Takeaways
From Disco Elysium to The Witcher, how does music contribute to our experience playing?
Like a perfectly balanced recipe or a well-oiled machine, a videogame needs a handful of vital components to really come to life. You've got graphics, mechanics, narrative, all that good stuff. But perhaps one of the most underappreciated aspects that really helps tie a game together is its music.
Good videogame music pulls you straight into the world and creates some real powerful memories that attach themselves to the scores you hear as you play. Everyone has that one track that brings back floods of nostalgia or giddy stomach butterflies whenever they hear it—maybe it's the delicate piano of Aerith's Theme from Final Fantasy 7, the roaring of the choir during Skyrim's title song, or the heart-pounding melodies of Mass Effect 2's Suicide Mission.
Even moreso than movies or television, videogame soundtracks are so vital to hammering home emotions or bringing the places and things we interact with to life.
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So many of us here at PC Gamer are absolute suckers for a good videogame song, so our Video Producer Midas Whittaker sat down with some of the composers we love the most to talk about exactly why gaming music matters. From long-time videogame composers like Baldur's Gate 3's Boris Slavov and Cyberpunk 2077's P.T. Adamczyk, to bands like Sea Power who put their knowledge and expertise of making their own music to use for crafting Disco Elysium's excellent score.
Each composer shares a little bit of their story, their creative choices, and why videogame music matters to them. I may be biased, but it's well worth a watch for the opportunity to get into the minds of some of the folk who've made our favourite bangers, and remember one of the many things that makes videogames so gosh darn cool.
You can watch the video right at the top of this article, or over on PC Gamer's YouTube channel. And if you like what you see, make sure to subscribe for more neat videos like this one.
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