Stephan Schutze says the stars lined up when he was approached by the small studio Prideful Sloth to provide the music and sound design for Yonder, the Cloud Catcher Chronicles . As he told me, the kind of lush orchestral music he wanted to write was exactly what they had in mind! In addition to writing over two hours of interactive music, Stephan also created the sound design for Yonder , incorporating his re-mastered samples of the classic BBC Sound Effects library, to give the world a very

The only way to escape from the Downside, where you begin your journey in Pyre , is through a series of battles against other bands of exiles known as The Rites. Pyre is the most ambitious game yet from Supergiant Games. Its three-year development gave composer and Audio Director Darren Korb plenty of time to create a unique identity for the music. As he told me, his overall concept was to give the soundtrack the feel of a band of troubadours accompanying you on your journey.

As the player in the chilling VR game Edge of Nowhere, it's up to you to figure out what went wrong on previous expeditions to the frozen Antarctic landscape. Michael Bross created a haunting soundtrack that, as he told me, is inspired in part by the epic adventures of 19th Century explorers. Michael said he loved working on this game because the horror and bleakness of the story and environment gave him an interesting challenge: to write beautiful but terrifying music. During his career,

Composing the score for a game with minimal music and making it have an impact is exactly the kind of challenge Jason Graves loves! Good thing, too, because that was the assignment for Ready at Dawn's VR adventure game, Lone Echo. In our conversation, Jason explains that the little music there is in the game is meant to provide comfort for a player experiencing a very stressful mission. Simultaneously, Jason was on the team of composers for Lawbreakers , joining Tom Salta , Jack Wall, Mick

At this year's ASCAP Composers' Choice Awards, Tom Salta and Klayton (AKA Atlas Plug and Celldweller) were co-winners of Video Game Score of the Year for Killer Instinct, Season 3 ! Tom says working with Celldweller was a fun process that gave them a chance to create music for some of Season 3's new characters. Mostly Tom and Klayton worked together from their separate studios, but they also got together for fun to create a fresh sound for one of the game's legacy characters, Eyedol. Tom's dream

How do you write music for a game that doesn't exist? That was the challenge Marty O'Donnell took on by writing a musical prequel to Highwire Games' Golem . After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Marty drew on his expertise writing music for Halo and Destiny to create a completely new world in Echoes of the First Dreamer . Golem is being developed for Play Station VR, and although there's a steep learning curve to implement music and sound design, Marty says it's fun to be on the bleeding edge

As a member of the team that composed music for the God of War series, Gerard Marino knows a thing or two about the video game music business. For one thing, it's important to be nice to people! Gerard was a speaker at the Brazilian Independent Games Festival in Sao Paulo in June, where he gave a frank talk on how to get started in the industry, and what to do when you make it. As he told me, it's a tough business, but there's a close-knit community of game composers who help each other out. In

It's been ten years since Chance Thomas first brought Middle Earth to life with his music for Lord of the Rings Online! There's lots to celebrate: Chance has compiled his favorite tracks from LOTRO in a special album , and is in the process of creating music for the just-announced expansion, which takes us to Mordor. In our conversation, he explains that Tolkien's trilogy is still the primary source of his inspiration. During the intervals between LOTRO expansions, Chance worked on many other

Mike Raznick says writing the music for AWAY: The Survival Adventure VR game in development by the studio Breaking Walls gave him the chance to combine his love of writing music for nature documentaries and games. He was hooked the moment he put on the headset and jumped off the cliff as a soaring bird! Mike says one of the challenges in writing the music for AWAY was to have it support, but not overpower, the player's virtual reality experience. Musical talent runs in Mike's family: he's

Marcin Przybylowicz had no idea when he started writing the music for The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt that he'd be creating one of the most beloved soundtracks of all time! He collaborated with Mikolai Stroinski and brought in the folk band Percival to add what Marcin describes as the "secret ingredient" to the music that captures the world of The Witcher. We also talked about Marcin's new project, Seven: The Days Long Gone. Marcin has spent seven years writing music for The Witcher and all its