Another new month brings with another slate of titles, and with that, more music. This month we had an absolute goldmine, including some best of the year frontrunners both big and small, as well as a few other pretty fantastic scores. What are you waiting for? Let’s dive in.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
The music of a galaxy far, far away has always been truly special. John Williams has crafted an innumerable amount of iconic moments for this saga, and many of the tie-in games have made sure to make the most of that. Jed: Fallen Order is no exception, though it may be surprising to hear, that the score stands tallest when it’s doing its own thing. Respawn’s composer, Stephen Barton, delivers a score that sounds distinctly Star Wars without just feeling like mere mimicry.
Death Stranding
No matter how you feel about Hideo Kojima’s new, weird walking simulator-esque experience, it’s hard to not like the soundtrack. Ludvig Forssell’s soundtrack is a synth fan’s dream, offering immaculate soundscapes to slink your way across. Throw in some timely licensed music like the Timefall EP and what feels like half of Low Roar’s discography, and the end result is what is almost assuredly going to be number one on the list of best soundtracks.
Golem
Martin O’Donnell is one of the greatest composers the industry has ever known. The soundtracks for the Bungie Halo titles are so iconic that they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as series’ like Zelda and Mario, so it should be a surprise to no one that O’Donnell’s newest score, for VR title Golem, is a masterpiece. The tinkling piano, the leitmotif built around the dreamers: it all sounds distinctly like O’Donnell, and every note is a revelation.
Gris
The gorgeous side-scrolling indie from Nomada Studios has a lot going for it. Beautiful presentation, fantastic art direction, and perhaps most importantly, an incredible soundtrack. The music comes courtesy of band Berlinist, and the results are immaculate. Combining sombre pianos and vocals much of the way through, the score carries an emotional punch that is rarely pulled off so well.
And there we have it. The final monthly recap before our end of year recap. One of the strongest months of the year musically by far. Definitely keep your eyes out for multiple entries from this list making their way to the year’s end list as well.
Comments 15
Oof, a hard choice between Gris and Death Stranding this month. Gris is especially impressive given how much smaller a game it is than Death Stranding but I think I have to go for DS as the soundtrack of the month. Even just the small motifs that can be heard in the distro centres around the world stay with you. Low Roar impressed me despite not really knowing much about them beforehand, and I’d say I’m somebody who keeps up with music.
I remember the first and last songs of death stranding. Don't be so serious and BBs song are brilliant. Only issue is with the others you don't have the time to enjoy them. Those two play with no interruptions and have plenty of time for the songs to play. The others tend to get cut off or require you to go at a snails pace to listen too
@Danloaded They definitely need to add an MP3 Player to the game like in FFXV, only being able to listen to the music in private rooms is a bit annoying.
Love the Death Stranding soundtrack, I'd never heard of Low Roar but I'm a fan now and who doesn't love Pop Virus.
The music in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order was fantastic. There was a certain scene towards the end of the game where The Force theme played which was just great.
@gbanas92 Yeah, I had a feeling you'd pick that track to highlight the amazing score from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It was a genuine surprise to hear open the game, and the way it came back later made me grin. Definitely not my preferred cup of musical tea, but I appreciate the extra, never-before-explored layer it added to the Star Wars universe.
There's also a random occurrence where, when hacking Imperial Probe Droids, BD-1 will beep out familiar Star Wars tunes. First time it happened to me was during the weighty and sombre concluding level. Cracked me right up.
@nessisonett agreed. I'm Not sure if you get one for levelling up facilities tho. Honestly I enjoyed alot of the Low Roar tracks. Although there are tracks I've heard from people's structures like R&B track or modern pop which seem out of place in the game
Death Stranding is probably the best video game soundtrack of all time. I can't think of anything that comes close except Tony Hawk and GTA games.
@jess3a3 I thought Spider-Man for the PS4 would have hugely benefited from a GTA-style soundtrack you can listen to while you swing around and fight bad guys.
@RogerRoger I had to! Even though it wasn't actually done by Stephen Barton (as far as I know at least) it best exemplifies my point that the game's music was at it's best when it was doing its own thing haha. I think BD only did that for me one time. I wish it were a little more frequent. Or at least easy to get by interacting with BD manually (the down on the d-pad thing!)
@ApostateMage Yeah familiar melodies popped up very sparsely, and I appreciated that restraint because when they did show up, they meant that much more!
@Danloaded Yeah I've almost exclusively listened to it away from the game as I didn't really like the game. But I love the music!
@nessisonett Yeah the Death Stranding soundtrack is just so incredible and I love it!
@Arugula I more or less feel the same. I like Kojima's stuff a lot, but this one didn't click with me and I have no interest in going back to it really. But the music? Hoo boy, I love it!
@gbanas92 Glad I wasn't the only one spamming down on the D-Pad, hoping that BD-1 would sing me a song!
@RogerRoger At least when BD wasn't singing, he was still being adorable!
@gbanas92
@RogerRoger D'awww look at him!
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