Best PS4 Music of August 2018

While the music in July had us digging pretty deep to actually find more than one thing to talk about, August provided us with nothing short of an absolute flood. A huge amount of exceptional music accompanied some great - and not so great - games this past month, and we’re going to tell you about them.

Dead Cells

First up is the wonderful Metroidvania from Motion Twin. Gorgeous and wonderfully received, one key area of the game was the score from Yoann Laulan. The soundtrack crafts a phenomenal soundscape that wonderfully captures the oftentimes frenetic nature of Metroidvania, but accounts for the downtime that the genre affords with some more delicate sensibilities. The end result is a gorgeous soundtrack able to evoke a plethora of different emotions.

We Happy Few

Despite the fact that Compulsion Games’ second title disappointed on many fronts, the music was still a bright spot. Much like their first title, Contrast, the music was of exceptional quality despite the game being weaker in other areas. The title’s music is two-fold. First off - and probably better recognised - is the 60s era rock music, which is courtesy of a band consisting of musicians local to Compulsion called, fittingly, “The Make Believes”. Not to be understated, however, is the regular game score which comes courtesy of Nicolas Marquis. Both sets of music are incredible, and are able to significantly heighten elements of the game that could well have faltered.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Episode 1

Jared Emerson Johnson has always been a personal favourite, having contributed music to almost all of Telltale’s releases, and during the dark days when Telltale’s titles left something to be desired, his music was often a lone highlight. Luckily, his music is backing something a little better this time around as Telltale’s final Walking Dead seems to be of a bit higher quality.

Shenmue I & II

SEGA’s much lauded - and divisive - series has at least one thing that should be universally praised, and that’s the music. Both titles come packed with absolutely incredible scores courtesy of a combination of both Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and Yuzo Koshiro, bring liveliness to the games that might not have otherwise been there given some of the more tedious proclivities of the titles. The end results are a couple of the great game soundtracks of all time.

Donut County

Annapurna’s latest PlayStation release continues the trend of its titles having wonderful scores. The score is great in a radically different way as well. Whereas What Remains of Edith Finch had more emotional heft, and Gorogoa was more wonderfully ambient, the score that Daniel Koestner and Ben Esposito - the game's creator - crafted is a much livelier, quirky score that offers a perfect accompaniment to the decidedly bizarre title.

August was absolutely filled to the brim with great game music, and things aren’t likely to let up with the likes of Marvel's Spider-Man and Shadow of the Tomb Raider in the mix for September. Things are definitely starting to heat up.