“That main folksong was actually the second thing I ever recorded for the score, probably back in 2012 or 2013,” Prahlow says. Travellers flung across space, who have been playing their instruments solo on very different planets, suddenly come together as a single band, playing around a campfire in the dark. It’s fitting, considering the game follows a plucky Hearthian sifting through the remains left behind by the solar system’s previous inhabitants.Īnd of course, the most affecting example comes at the very end of the game. “I used analog, digital, and some NES emulated synths - this way I was able to combine all eras of modern game music into a huge pad, with a memorable, minimalistic melody.”Īnd the songs are often designed to overlap one another, too, particularly the Hearthian and Nomai themed tunes. “For the 'End Times' music, I wanted to capture the synth sounds from eras of game music from the late 1980s through modern-day, hearing them as a unified sound,” Prahlow says. Overlapping sounds like this are a big part of many of the game’s tracks. “I combined many piano libraries, heavily edited, as well as recording my upright grand live, to create a unified but custom piano sound from many sources,” he explains. Without a featureless vacuum to record in, Prahlow had to get creative with evoking that particularly excellent image. On the other hand, “the Nomais emote through their technology, so I created a lot of melodic sound design and deep textures for their soundscape, and wrote a melody and textures to resemble a piano being ripped apart in space.” I wanted to evoke a sense of nostalgia, a callback to games that used simple motif, especially the Zelda series,” he says. “The Hearthian style focuses on folk instruments, as they emote with music through instruments, and simple campfire melodies. Their first concepts focused on the difference between the Hearthian race and their Nomai precursors. Prahlow explains that, because the soundtrack is so crucial to the experience, he worked closely with the game’s creator, Alex Beachum. “To avoid that and make the music stand out, I crafted the music to follow the player's sense of exploration.” “When there’s constant looping music in an exploration game like Outer Wilds, the music can lose importance and become wallpaper,” he explains. This was a deliberate choice by composer Andrew Prahlow. Other times, if you’re just exploring under your own steam, admiring the stars, it’ll be quiet. And the minimalist track that indicates the end of a timeloop beats like a fast-ticking clock, but still feels like an invitation into the next go-around. Stumbling onto something new or important always has a cue that brings a sense of wonder alongside curiosity being paid off. Locations get their own tracks: the homely banjo of Timber Hearth or the echoing song of Dark Bramble. And often, this music also reflects the themes of togetherness and connection in the game. But when a track kicks in, you sit up and pay attention.
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