"Game directors and producers have too much power in their hands." Final Fantasy composer says there’s less creative freedom in game music nowadays

I’m surprised. I would have guessed that music would be one field that the suits wouldn’t pay too much attention as long as it didn’t sound like garbage at the end of the day.

Maybe stop working on AAA games. Plenty of creative freedom (and amazing games) in the indie space

I don’t think composing is such a lucrative industry that most people can be quite that choosy

True, I just think the flailing AAA industry is a lost cause. I would be very surprised if his statements have any impact on the current stifling atmosphere for musicians at these studios

And yet there Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

There’s always a choice here.

See: Mick Gordon.

Recent game music almost sounds too cookie cutter. It’s like movie music. It’s just… there. It used to be you could remember not just main themes but ancillary ones too and you can thank John Williams and Nobou Uematsu for that, but seriously how many recent games or movies have iconic standout soundtracks?

Not a lot of recent movies come to mind, but Sinners sure is a standout, and I’m going to shill on it any day.

Depends what you mean by recent. I’m not even someone that plays with music, unless it’s an rpg or some other genre with a lot of talking, I just turn it off because I prefer listening to my own music.

But to answer your question, world of warcraft, Baldur’s gate3, clair obscur, Stardew valley, tropico 6, doom, hotline Miami, pretty much all the supergiant games, outer wilds, Cuphead, celeste, witcher 3, ac black flag + odyssey (fucking love those shanties).

And that’s just off the top of my head and from games I’ve played. I’m sure there’s tons more.

Edit: just as I pressed the post button I remembered how I’m always super hype for new civ games because they always have good soundtracks. Except for this lastest one, haven’t played this one.

I would really like to not work on a AAA game in terms of music. I would, however, work with a developer in terms of music for an indie game (both my producer, Neigsendoig, and I would be happy to do that).

I still wait for a new OST to catch me like the original Spyro trilogy did

As a very much code oriented person I don’t think I could even give you useful feedback on music.

Presumably I would just hand over a dev build of the game and see what they thought made sense. I wonder what the AAA developers are even saying to control the music direction.

Without going into much detail, I know of an indie studio where the game director wanted a lot of personal oversight on many things, music included. From giving other games’ tunes as a moodboard to take inspiration from for specific tracks, to minutiae like removing an instrument, swapping an instrument for another one, slowing or increasing the beat…

I don’t think it’s a matter of indie vs AAA studios as a lot of people here are making it out to be. It’s a matter of how big of a personality the game director is, and how much oversight they want over their game.

Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t.

I know that video game music has gotten significantly worse as technology has improved. Something can sound “professional” because it has an actual orchestra, but the the composition leaves a lot to be desired.

Jim Sterling put it best when he said the music for Stranger of Paradise was just “vague orchestral walls of noise.”

The music for Spyro was great because they hired someone with professional experience in the industry, Stewart Copeland of The Police.

More often than not, great music in video games comes about from paying composers appropriate salaries and letting them do their thing.

It’s easy to hire Joe Shmoe for a bargain who will just put in “drums of war,” which is what most developers end up doing.

I’m noticing music is having the same drawbacks as graphics in video games.

People keep “adding more” just because they can, not because it’s necessary or improves the final product.

Anime also has this issue with most modern animes having music playing 90% of the time because they can afford it. It reduces the integrity of the art down to that of a slapstick comedy.

I agree. Modern developers use technology to cover up for creative bankruptcy.

I’d almost like for more of the control to go the other way. A director could negotiate with a composer about what mood is being asked for a particular moment in a game, leading to the composer making ideas for leitmotifs and buildup. Then, the game gets some number of adjustments or early planning to account for it.

It sounds insane to reconfigure everything to match the music, but honestly, from some of my favorite moments in gaming, it can make a lot of sense. Some of the crescendo periods of Final Fantasy XIV felt incredibly well-earned from the way they had used the expansion’s whole soundtrack as a sort of ballad, repeating a few certain themes both story-wise and in the music.

One example of a game that I think developed this dissonance is Ace Attorney. The main confrontational “gameplay” of those games is when you’re cross-examining a witness. The “Cross Examination” themes are some of the fan favorites - and since the beginning, they’ve had a second theme, Allegro, for when things are getting more intense. The Investigations games decided to put in a third theme, Presto, which goes loony for the sake of a culminating showdown of wits with the murderer, who has one last excuse as to why accusing them is impossible. It feels EPIC.

Only one trouble; Ace Attorney is often a comedic series, and side characters are still acting stupid and making flat-falling jokes during that last cross examination, often breaking the mood of that great track. In my view, a “musically-directed” Ace Attorney would be fine with keeping up its signature silliness at all other points in the game, but keep the tone completely serious when that “Presto” theme is playing, to make it feel like a really personal boss fight.