To many, Marty O’Donnell is no mere composer. For plenty of gamers, he is the greatest score-crafter in video game history. He is responsible for the iconic, powered-by-chanting-monks Halo theme, Destiny’s score, and, in a previous life, the Flintstones Kids Vitamins jingle. His own Highwire Games is home to his first post-Bungie endeavor: a PlayStation VR game called Golem. After O’Donnell sent over his first piece of music composed for the new game (hear it in the video above), I asked him a few questions about his thoughts and inspirations for Golem’s soundtrack.
First, I was curious how O’Donnell inspires himself for a game like Golem. Staring at concept art? Thinking deeply about his own idea of the game? Something else? “It’s interesting because usually the inspiration comes directly from the game; I need to score the emotional tone of a particular cutscene or a gameplay sequence, for instance,” he told me. “That’s how the Golem announcement trailer was done. But with a prequel album you don’t have the specifics – the game is still early in production – so you have to use the broader themes of the story and the world, instead. Luckily, Golem has a fairly rich world to draw from. Even the title, Echoes of the First Dreamer, is a reference to some of the history from the game.”
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First, I was curious how O’Donnell inspires himself for a game like Golem. Staring at concept art? Thinking deeply about his own idea of the game? Something else? “It’s interesting because usually the inspiration comes directly from the game; I need to score the emotional tone of a particular cutscene or a gameplay sequence, for instance,” he told me. “That’s how the Golem announcement trailer was done. But with a prequel album you don’t have the specifics – the game is still early in production – so you have to use the broader themes of the story and the world, instead. Luckily, Golem has a fairly rich world to draw from. Even the title, Echoes of the First Dreamer, is a reference to some of the history from the game.”
Continue reading…
Continue reading...