Here’s our selection of video game soundtracks released in December 2021.
This is a non-exhaustive list without any classification hierarchy. We invite you to discover new soundtracks that will brighten up your day! 🙂
Winter’s here and the G4F Records team whishes you happy holiday!
Halo Infinite, Always Gives Us Chills
Composers: Gareth Coker, Curtis Schweitzer, Joel Coretilz
Halo Infinite is the latest FPS in the famous series developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios. It’s the 16th title in the franchise that began in 2001 with Halo: Combat Evolved. It’s starting to date back now! 😉
The project can boast about having three composers on its soundtrack: Gareth Coker, Curtis Schweitzer and Joel Coretilz. Gareth Coker is particularly known for having recently worked on Ruined King (see: November Article). Curtis Schweitzer has composed for Starbound and Earthlight. Finally, we can find the work of Joel Coretilz on Solar Ash or Eastward.
In the end, it’s no less than 48 tracks for a total listening time of 2hr 26min. Gareth Coker spoke about working on this project during an interview for NME magazine. For this artist, this soundtrack was a real challenge and we can see why. Coker has often started from nothing to create a whole musical universe for past projects he’s worked on. But with the Halo franchise, it’s a different beast. Creating this composition required resuming and continuing upon a solid foundation that is already known and appreciated by an audience.
The challenge was that Halo is the first time I’m stepping into someone else’s creation, so it’s been about learning the vocabulary and understanding why people like the original Halo music in particular. Fans will be very interested to see how we use past material and expand upon it
Gareth Cocker told NME
However, here at G4F, we believe that it’s a challenge well met and our favorite for this soundtrack is undoubtedly the main theme song revisited by Curtis Schweitzer: Zeta Halo. The music’s symbolic choirs always gives us chills and brings back memories! Unlike the original theme song, the composer preferred to only keep the vocals. There aren’t percussions in this version. This adds an even more mystical side to the music.
To listen to the album:
Solar Ash, A Sometimes Surreal, but Always Ethereal Soundtrack
Composer: Troupe Gammage
A perfect addition to the catalog of publisher Annapurna Interactive, Solar Ash is the new project of Heart Machine Studio, creator of the renowned Hyper Light Drifter. If we had to classify it among the game genres, Solar Ash would be an action adventure game. You play as Rei, a Voidrunner ready to do anything to save her planet from its invaders
The gameplay of Solar Ash is intended to be dizzying. Rei can cover very large areas at high speed and their verticality is also in the spotlight. We are therefore not surprised when, after a first introductory part, the world opens up more to us and the first notes to reach us are smooth and hovering. Synth pads with almost hypnotic sounds, sometimes punctuated by more epic flights or even vocals. This work is above all the earlier work of Troupe Gammage, the project’s main composer. A very experienced musician who has worked on many projects and in multiple positions, but is little known to the public passionate about video games.
A sometimes surreal, but always ethereal soundtrack which also knows how to diversify with more tribal sounds, percussion or even oriental sounds in certain parts. Note that Troupe Gammage is not alone in the composition of the project, he was helped by Joel Corelitz (Halo Infinite), Sky Lu, and also Disasterpeace, composer of the music for Hyper Light Drifter, the studio’s first game.
Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the Solar Ash soundtrack is not officially available on music platforms! The studio and Troupe Gammage have already announced that the album is in preparation and the release should be soon. We look forward to it! For now, browsing the game on PlayStation or PC (via the Epic Games Store) is the only way to enjoy its fabulous soundtrack.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, An Immense Adventure, Just Like its Music
Composer: Masayoshi Soken
In recent months, it’s been hard to miss Square Enix‘s MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, which has been much talked about when its Endwalker extension was released. Due to the record attendance of the game in December, the studio decided to stop sales of the digital game as well as its free trial version. Unheard of in the industry!
Even if Endwalker‘s soundtrack isn’t officially available yet (CD release scheduled for February 23), this is an opportunity to approach this juggernaut that is the music of Final Fantasy XIV. The main theme to Endwalker, whose video is available on the game’s YouTube channel, is a pop-rock song composed by Masayoshi Soken and performed by The Primals.
Masayoshi Soken has been the in-house composer for Final Fantasy XIV since the 2013 launch of the A Realm Reborn version. Supported with a few rare exceptions by other composers including Nobuo Uematsu, who was invited to compose a few themes for each extension, Masayoshi Soken has created one of the greatest soundtracks of the JPRG. Impressive due to the quantity, because Final Fantasy XIV now has several hundred original music distributed between its different extensions, but also and above all, by its quality and its eclecticism. We go from epic fantasy orchestral, to metal and pop, which makes Final Fantasy XIV an immense adventure, just like its music.
It’s difficult to present the musical scope of the game in a few lines, but we can only advise you to listen to this soundtrack, especially if you already enjoy JRPG music. Fortunately, the music from its release to the Shadowbringers expansion is available on Spotify! So all that remains is to wait for the streaming release of Endwalker. Nothing has been announced yet, so we may have to be patient. It’ll take a few months, or even a few years, before we see Endwalker and the music for its streaming updates.
To listen to the album: