Music in plot

Play it again, Johnny Guitar.

One of the aspects of the games industry that I love just so dearly is how much of a mash-up it can be of different vocations and proficiencies to create a sort-of superflux of creative artforms. You'll have artists who work on creating the visuals of the world, not just what occupies the main screen but what is scrawled in that small in-descript edge of some far-away corner that no one ever explores. You have sound talent who create massive boards that capture not only the mood of the moment, with stabbing daggers of audio emotion for the right moments, but also background suites of setting tunes that rustle with the wind, influencing the wider world with the subtlest of tweaks. And in the manner of the blog in question today; the use of specific music tracks in the creation of setting and world.

By the use of 'music track', I'm referring to traditional beats of songs, with traditionally understood beginnings, middles and ends, like you might find in an album; but I do want to touch a bit on orchestral suites as well. Because, the use of big bands and musical artists has boomed across the game development medium since it's blossom to prominence, whereas once movies might have been their biggest employers. Career and session musicians can often find their services sought after by all the hundreds of published quality titles each year, a demand driven by people who understand the unspoken prestige of a truly interestingly evocative or fittingly apt soundtrack and how that reflects on the quality of the game in question- as well as in reinforcing the themes of that game.

Big, bombastic bands are best driven to the ambitious and set-piece dripped adventure video games with their scope and scale on their sleeves, whilst synthetic weave tracks weave best into Sci-Fi and the clanging organ works greatest on horror. But we can get even more specific than that when we look within the magic box of artists that are employed to fill the music within the world of a game. Music has always been a means of telling stories, but traditionally they've existed as means of telling one's own story. I'm always fascinated whenever I see music used as a means to convey the experiences of a fictionalised other within the context and world of a fictional world, and I want to discuss just a few examples of this very style here today.

Firstly, who remembers Skyrim's bards? In the game of Skyrim there are a handful of well-known spoken-word tavern songs composed in the manner of sung shanties like medieval troubadours often would- suiting the environment of fantasy Norway that Skyrim attempts to create. Within that thematic template you can get a feel for the role and position that music plays within the game's environment by paying some attention to the lyrics. You'll have your legendary tales and farcical rhymes, like Ragnar the Red or The Dragonborn Comes, conveying the spirit of a people who's stories have traditionally lived on in the spoken word rather than the written. But you'll also hear about current events, like the civil war, sung from the prospective of whichever side the hold you're current within is favoured towards, and even a special song to commemorate the completing of the main story once you've crossed that threshold. History, news and culture, all existing within music and painting out of the people of Skyrim in audible strokes. 

One of my favourite uses of music in plot has to come from the Souls franchises, that attempts to convey many things from thematic consistency to complex story events through music. When battling the Old Demon King in Dark Souls III, the last vestige of a decimated species of demon people born from the blasphemous and hubristic chaos fire which warped those of Izalith, the theme of the heart of that destruction, the bed of Chaos from Dark Souls I, can be heard remixed within the background connecting the two games from the audio level. But even more significant than even that, the final boss of Dark Souls III (Spoilers) famously depicts the move-set of every player in the franchise in fitting with his role as a deific amalgam of every player who has beaten Dark Souls in the past. His second phase, however, reverts the creature to a slightly more advanced version of the final Boss of Dark Souls I (Gwyn) through his moveset, coinciding with his theme quieting down and adopting the key memorable motifs of that famous boss's theme. Telling in music alone the resurgence of the first, most powerful soul, which made up this amalgam to begin with, rising back to the forefront for one last battle to callously hold onto his unnatural grip of the dying fire. Evocative stuff!

Cyberpunk 2077 is another game that makes intelligent use of it's in universe music with help of the several music artists who were sucked into that humongous production which was Cyberpunk's development. Fitting with the 'fight the power' theme of the 'Punk' side of the genre, Cyberpunk's world is brought to life as much by the music of the frustrated and beleaguered as by the visual construction of the world assets themselves. Hell, one of the archetypal character examples the original table top presented was literally called: 'Rocker Boy'. The screaming punk rock of the game's main band 'Samurai' is fuelled with the raging anger of a people crushed under the foot of soulless megacorps that have succeeded in seizing control of all the world. The ugliness and rawness of the world is split across all the music tracks, imbuing that vibe of the economically dystopian world Cyberpunk that stews around you, all conveyed immersively and intuitively. The power of music, everybody.

Another clever use of the power of music in storytelling is told to us within the flurries of Bioshock Infinite, itself a hugely narrative driven game that takes us across the concept of alternate universes. This comes into play often with the presentation of the 'pastel painted' American post card world we see depicted, with everything from barber-shop quartets to old timey shoe shiners. This entire ecosystem, suspended in the sky, is a parallel of our own, such to the point that the in universe music consists of famous songs from our world twisted into the sensibilities of the depicted culture. That aforementioned Quartet? Sing their own version of the Beach Boys' 'God Only Knows', for example. Later on in the game, as the nature of alternate universes and tears in reality become more apparent; we learn the reason for this. The people of this world found a way to tear their way into other realities and borrow from their cultures to enrich their own. A more tactile use of music in storytelling, but effective nonetheless.

In that same vein, the modern Wolfenstien games have their own narrative to tell through music. Although their approach is less 'subtle' perhaps than some of these others that I've lauded. You see, Wolfenstien has it's own alternative universe to portray, being the classic premise of 'what if the Nazi's had won the war'. Of course, this means that the latter half of the 20th century would truck along better favouring the sensibilities of the Nazi's, with brutalist constructions, industrialist supremacy and segregation through prison camps. Bizarrely, this also means that culturally, we have the same break-throughs in art, through digested through the 'alternate history' lens of German culture. Most notably, this manifests in the Beatles having their same library of songs, but all performed in German. Strange, but logical I guess.

As with all art, Music in another tool in the belt of the storyteller to convey plot, purpose, emotion and theme beyond the obvious means, and that lies just as true in video games as it does in movies. In fact, I think the scope of gaming leaves more than enough room for an entire language of music to exist and thrive on it's own; and in those times when it's finely tuned the synchronous connection with the finished product is simply unmatched. The greatest of the greats in the gaming space are a labour of love touching so many incredible vocations, all of them firmly deserving their exceptional spot of recognition for how they play a part in the collaborative effort of our favourite video games. It's no wonder why the Game Awards take so long to run each and every year!