# Who are your favourite game composers? Or your favourite game OSTs?



## robcs (Oct 10, 2021)

There are a lot of posts dedicated to who is the best film composer or what your favourite film soundtracks are, but I couldn't see anything about game music, so I thought I'd try to balance things out a little.

I'll start the ball rolling, in no particular order


Chance Thomas - the LOTRO soundtrack is one of the albums I play most often on Spotify, along with Unseen Universe (not a game OST but still a great listen)
Jason Graves - the Moss soundtrack has to be one of my all-time favourites--especially Home to Me--along with Deadspace and The Order
Jason Hayes (check out Elwynn Forest and Dun Morogh from his WoW OST)
Over to you, fellow Vi-Cers (which autocorrect tried to change to vicars!): what are some of your faves?


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## I like music (Oct 10, 2021)

Lennie Moore's Outcast was an absolute joy. Made the game twice as enjoyable.

I'll check out the guys you mentioned. Not overly familiar with any of those games or the music!


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## confusedsheep (Oct 10, 2021)

Loved Andrew Segas (Necros / Tracker Demo Scene handle) work on Freelancer. Also Unreal Tournament. 
And his band project "The Alpha Conspiracy" is generally liked among sheep 

 


Freelancer Soundtrack...


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## J-M (Oct 10, 2021)

There are just too many, so I'll just make this easier and list mostly game OSTs and a few composers:
Mass Effect trilogy
Halo series (1-Reach)
Battlefield 1
The Witcher series
Tekken series (3-7)
Bloodborne
God Of War (2018)
TES:Skyrim and TES:Oblivion

And then pretty much anything by Austin Wintory (LOVED his work on AC: Syndicate), same for Sascha Dikiciyan. There, now go explore... :D


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## Argy Ottas (Oct 10, 2021)

I really really loved the work of Mr. Gareth Coker (Ori and the blind forest) and Mr. Christopher Larkin (Hollow Knight)... Exceptional game soundtracks both!


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## Trash Panda (Oct 10, 2021)

So many. 

Koji Kondo - Legend of Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, etc. 
Nubuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey
Yasunori Mitsuda - Chrono Trigger, Xeno series
Kevin Riepl - Gears of War series
Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori - Halo series
Gerard Marino - God of War series
David Wise - Donkey Kong Country
Jack Wall and Sam Hulick - Mass Effect Series
Mick Gordon - Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal
Kow Otani - Shadow of the Colossus


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## Petrucci (Oct 10, 2021)

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order by Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab - now That's a Score, I had chills on my back many times playing that game)


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## Chris Richter (Oct 11, 2021)

Ori and the Blinded Forest was a main staple running on repeat for a long time. 
Octopath Traveler is my "newest" crush. It doesn't get old for me since I discovered it around two years ago. I love the battle themes.


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## TomislavEP (Oct 11, 2021)

My personal favorite is Jesper Kyd for his work on "Hitman" games. I also enjoyed the music in early "Tomb Raider" titles though I don't know the composer's name. The same goes for the soundtrack of "Max Payne" and its sequel.

I'm a big fan of the adventure genre. If I had to pick a highlight regarding music, I'll probably go with "The Curse of Monkey Island" (by Michael Land, I think). The childhood days...


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 11, 2021)

+1 for Austin Wintory 
+1 for Bear McCreary for "God of War"

And of course, a big one for "Last of Us" composer Gustavo Santaolalla.


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## Bear Market (Oct 11, 2021)

Austin Wintory, hands down. He has a unique voice (and seems to be an exceptionally nice guy as well!).

I also very much enjoy soundtracks composed by Stephen Barton (e.g. Titanfall series) and Christopher Larkin (Hollow Knight).


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## Patryk Scelina (Oct 11, 2021)

It's just impossible to pick. There are also many titles which were scored by more than one composer.
My favorites are: 
Mass Effect 1-3
Starcraft 2 - all three, but mostly part 2 by Neal Acree
Red Alert 1-3 by Frank Klepacki
And most recently
Wolfenstein New Order, Old Blood and New Colossus by Mick Gordon and Martin Stig Andersen


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## grabauf (Oct 11, 2021)

Another one to add to the list is Olivier Derivière.
His score to Remember Me is awesome:


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## OHjorth (Oct 11, 2021)

confusedsheep said:


> Loved Andrew Segas (Necros / Tracker Demo Scene handle) work on Freelancer. Also Unreal Tournament.
> And his band project "The Alpha Conspiracy" is generally liked among sheep
> 
> 
> ...



Freelancer was so ahead of its time in a way! I absolutely loved that game, and played it over and over! To me it came a bit out of nowhere, and the soundtrack worked so well!

I like a lot of different types of game music for a lot of different reasons. I'm one of those Jeremy Soule-fanboys who got their life changed and social life destroyed by ES:Morrowind and the music played a large role in that.

The main theme to Medal of honor: Allied assault by Miachel Giacchino is also a favorite. The melody of the fanfare is perfect!

I also love many of the ones already mentioned, Chrono Trigger, Hollow knight etcetera. Wish I had time to list all of them.


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## darcvision (Oct 11, 2021)

legend of mana ( yoko shimamura )
suikoden 2 ( miki higashino)
brave fencer musashi ( tsuyoshi sekito )
harvest moon : back to nature ( ??? )

the elder scrolls skyrim (jeremy soule)
dark souls series ( motoi sakuraba, yuka kitamura )
octopath traveller ( yasunori nishiki )
ori and the blind forest ( gareth cooker )
trine series ( ari pulkineen)
undertale ( toby fox)

i am setsuna (tomoki miyoshi)
lost sphear (tomoki miyoshi


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## blaggins (Oct 11, 2021)

The soundtrack to Warcraft 2 and the expansion WC2: Tides of Darkness by Glen Stafford have always had a special place in my heart. The sound of my childhood.  Little-known fact, if you put those game CD-ROMS into a CD player, the soundtrack would play, you just had to skip ahead a bunch of tracks.


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## pcohen12 (Oct 11, 2021)

To the above excellent responses, I would add anything by Geoff Knorr (most of the recent Civilization games: Beyond Earth, Civ 5, Civ 6). Civ 6 is especially fun, with each civ getting 4 different variations on a theme - ancient, medieval, industrial, and atomic (aka hybrid). And downloadable study scores for most of these pieces are cheaply available on Geoff’s website!


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## grabauf (Oct 11, 2021)

pcohen12 said:


> To the above excellent responses, I would add anything by Geoff Knorr (most of the recent Civilization games: Beyond Earth, Civ 5, Civ 6). Civ 6 is especially fun, with each civ getting 4 different variations on a theme - ancient, medieval, industrial, and atomic (aka hybrid). And downloadable study scores for most of these pieces are cheaply available on Geoff’s website!



How could I forget Civilization Beyond Earth? One of my favourite scores by Geoff Knorr.


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## Henu (Oct 11, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Little-known fact


Not at all, I recorded those on tape back then and listened to it all the time. :D

Speaking of Warcraft, Glenn Stafford is one of my faves as well, as is also Russell Brower (WoW) and Matt Uelmen (Diablo, WoW, etc). My other bunch of favourites are definitely the Lucasarts guys: Peter McConnell, Clint Bajakian and Michael Land. If I had to choose, I'd prolly pick McConnell for his pure versatility. That guy turns _everything_ into gold, no matter the genre, platform or the given specs.

I used to fanboy Jeremy Soule's stuff back in the day when Morrowind and NWN came out, but at some point his music started to turn very anonymous and forgettable drench of reverb so I haven't really followed him for the last ten years or so. Bob and Barn have done some wonderful stuff, as has Gareth Coker, Mark Morgan and Bjørn Lynne, Niels Bye Nielsen and wherever Michael Hoenig (Baldur's Gate 1+2) has gone, I still miss him. Damn, now I want to listen to BG soundtrack and GO FOR THE EYES!

(As a fun fact, I remember ripping Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 soundtracks from the CD's in 2001 and converted hundreds of small files into wavs and then rebuilt all the songs from those small pieces using only my ears and Cool Edit Pro. :D It took me weeks to compile, but I was really happy finally to be able to listen to the music outside of the game, haha!)


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## mybadmemory (Oct 11, 2021)

Hiroki Kikuta (Mana Series)
Kenji Ito (Seiken and SaGa Series)
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy)
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono etc)
Yasunori Nishiki (Octopath)
Michiko Naruke (Wild Arms)
+
Nights Into Dreams
Gaia Series / Terranigma


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## grabauf (Oct 11, 2021)

Going back in time we shouldn't forget Chris Huelsbeck:


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## Robin Thompson (Oct 11, 2021)

Riven - Robyn Miller



The Longest Journey - Bjørn Arve Lagim



...Yes, I'm old.


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## Robin Thompson (Oct 11, 2021)

Whoops, how could I forget Damjan Mravunac's epic beats from the Serious Sam franchise?


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## paularthur (Oct 11, 2021)

My most played OST lately == Final Fantasy 15 by Yoko Shimomura.


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## Scamper (Oct 11, 2021)

Austin Wintory, Gareth Coker, Jeremy Soule and the WOW guys have been properly mentioned and I love them too.

A few others I enjoy:
*Peter McConnell *(Broken Age, Hearthstone, Grim Fandango)
...very lively and fun compositions and orchestrations




*Joe Hisaishi* (Ni No Kuni)
...maybe not the typical game composer, but the Ni No Kuni music is a highlight anyways



*Darren Korb *(Hades, Pyre, Transistor, Bastion)
...often has a unique feel with great instrumentals and embedded songs



*Danny Baranowsky* (Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Crypt of the Necrodancer)
...one of the great early indie composers with lots of memorable tracks



*Yu-Peng Chen* (Genshin Impact)
...a current favorite cause of the quite beautiful and varied Genshin Impact soundtrack


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## wst3 (Oct 12, 2021)

Some great listening suggestions! I'm no longer a gamer of any ilk, but I do enjoy listening to the soundtracks, and now I have a big list to sort through.

That said, the game that first grabbed my attention and suggested where game audio was going was an earlier version of Madden Football - I don't remember the year but it would have been in the early 2000s, I was recently married and visiting our best man - he had just picked up the game and we spent an entire morning playing - much to the dismay of both wives<G>. I remember that opening music - it was an absolute ear opener.


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## Tice (Oct 12, 2021)

I'm very specifically 'old-school' in my game music tastes, I think. I love what Glenn Stafford did for the Terrans in StarCraft 1, Frank Klepacki on Command & Conquer, Kevin Manthei on Sacrifice, Jeremy Soule on Total Annihilation... (I was a bit of a strategy fan in the 90s, it seems...)
Some of those 90s sounds, especially the synth sounds, have gone out of favor. But I'd love to see them make a comeback.


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## tmhuud (Oct 12, 2021)

Probably Sonic the Hedgehog. (1st) game. Loved it.


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## WhiteNoiz (Oct 12, 2021)

Petri Alanko (Notably Alan Wake, plus very clean and thick productions in general)
Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill)
Michael McCann (Deus Ex:HR, Splinter Cell Double Agent, amazing textures and atmosphere)


That makes my hairs stand every time.

Crash Team Racing for the psx also had a good, entertaining soundtrack.
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines also had a very fitting, moody soundtrack.

Off the top of my head. Might edit later. 😋


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## Terry93D (Oct 12, 2021)

_Final Fantasy VI,_ Nobuo Uematsu
On a track-by-track basis, its qualitative consistency is through the roof. Two or three weak tracks on a 60-track score. A great achievement.

_Journey_, Austin Wintory
Beautiful, beautiful, highly emotional. Gorgeous solo cello.

_Rodina_, John Robert Matz
Great, epic space adventure score. 

_The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim_, Jeremy Soule
Epic and often beautiful music.

_Radiant Historia_ and _Last Ranker_, Yoko Shimomura
The last great scores by this composer. The apotheosis of her style and -isms. Everything since has been rote execution of those same -isms.

_Final Fantasy Brave Exvius_, Noriyasu Agematsu
Far better than a mobile phone game would seem to deserve. When does Agematsu get a mainline FF? Fantastic music in the best vein of the classic JRPG score, except for the full orchestra. 

_Lufia: The Legend Returns_, Yasunori Shiono, Akiko Ishibashi, Tomoko Morita, and Yukio Nakajima
Another great JRPG score. The best of the _Lufia_ series.

_Infinity_, Eric Hache
The best GameBoy JRPG score.

_Treasure of the Rudras_, Ryuji Sasai
Yet another three-hour JRPG score from the Squaresoft stables of the SNES era - this one, though forgotten, can stand proudly with its siblings.

_Golden Sun_, Motoi Sakuraba
Sakuraba's best work. Bold, hugely melodic, and striking.

_Bravely Default_, Revo
I'm baffled why _Octopath Traveler_ seems to get all the plaudits that ought to have gone to this score, by any measure a better score, with better melodies and more striking orchestration.

_Chrono Cross_, Yasunori Mitsuda
A masterpiece - gorgeous, gorgeous music.

_Final Fantasy Tactics_, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata
Still one of gaming's finest scores. Thematic, orchestral.


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## KEM (Oct 13, 2021)

Always been a big fan of Jesper Kyd, Assassin's Creed 2 in particular is my favorite of his, Jeremy Soule and his work on The Elder Scrolls is amazing, and I'm also a huge fan of Marty O'Donnell and what he did with Halo and Destiny


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## jeremyr (Oct 13, 2021)

Terry93D said:


> The best of the _Lufia_ series.


Dude...


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## Laurin Lenschow (Oct 13, 2021)

My favourite game OSTs are the ones from Outward, Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest IX. Although I like pretty much the entirety of them I will link one track for each of them that I think is particularly great, because I assume you don't want to listen to 6+ hours of music based on the recommendation of a random stranger on the internet 



Spoiler: Outward









Spoiler: Octopath Traveler









Spoiler: Dragon Quest IX


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## LatinXCombo (Oct 13, 2021)

_Neo Cab OST _ by Obfusc, a/k/a James X. Burke, a fellow midwesterner. An underrated, story-based game about technology and humanity; his soundtrack really enhances the experience. 

_Deus Ex: Human Revolution_ by Michael McCann -- when I moved to Detroit, I would play "Detroit City Ambient" while driving at night. Pretty meta, now that I think about it. The main theme is reminiscent of _Battestar Galactica 

Suzerain_ by James Spence. If you've ever wanted to be president of Fake Turkey in 1950, this is the game for you. The soundtrack is cool. 

Honorable mention - not original, but _Alpha Protocol. _Because it had the guts to include "Turn up the Radio" as the soundtrack for the boss fight against the coked-out Russian mobster with an '80s obsession.


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## LatinXCombo (Oct 13, 2021)

pcohen12 said:


> To the above excellent responses, I would add anything by Geoff Knorr (most of the recent Civilization games: Beyond Earth, Civ 5, Civ 6). Civ 6 is especially fun, with each civ getting 4 different variations on a theme - ancient, medieval, industrial, and atomic (aka hybrid). And downloadable study scores for most of these pieces are cheaply available on Geoff’s website!


OMG you can't mention Civ soundtracks without mentioning "Baba Yetu"....


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## Trash Panda (Oct 13, 2021)

LatinXCombo said:


> Honorable mention - not original, but _Alpha Protocol. _Because it had the guts to include "Turn up the Radio" as the soundtrack for the boss fight against the coked-out Russian mobster with an '80s obsession.


Highlight of the game for me!


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## Auf dem Wolf (Oct 13, 2021)

So subtle, so evocative. Martin Stig Andersen & SØS Gunver Ryberg / INSIDE




I also love the musical worldbuilding of Jim Guthrie / Sword and Sworcery. 




And Rob Hubbard, SID master. This music will loop forever through the deepest dungeons of my mind.


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## CT (Oct 13, 2021)

The Elder Scrolls stuff has been huge for me. Halo/Destiny, anything Austin Wintory does... I'm not a big gamer beyond that. Oh, the Mass Effect composers have been great too!


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## mscp (Oct 13, 2021)

Geniuses:




Clint Bajakian
Peter McConnell
Michael Land


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## darkmagi250 (Oct 13, 2021)

Too many, but let's see, here's my top ten in random order:

1. Nobuo Uematsu
2. Junichi Masuda
3. Kenji Ito
4. Yoko Shimomura
5. Graeme Norgate (especially for the Timesplitters soundtracks)
6. Yasunori Mitsuda
7. Yuzo Koshiro
8. Jun Ishikawa
9. Jun Senoue
10. Grant Kirkhope


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Oct 13, 2021)

Who ever wrote this


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## proggermusic (Oct 14, 2021)

Wow, you guys already covered pretty much all my favorites! Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Koji Kondo, and David Wise are all so excellent, I'm glad they're getting some love here. Plus all the other folks who worked on the later Final Fantasy and Zelda games, building on Uematso and Kondo's foundations.

The two Chrono games will probably always be my favorites, soudtrack-wise.

Mario Kart 8 has some pretty excellent jams, though... they did a really outstanding job with that one.


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## Trash Panda (Oct 14, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> So many.
> 
> Koji Kondo - Legend of Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, etc.
> Nubuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey
> ...


How did I forget Masato Nakamura (Sonic the Hedgehog).

One of my all time favorite video game jams:


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## sound team apk (Oct 16, 2021)

Considering my user name, it would be wrong not to mention "Falcom sound team jdk" ... a very different approach from a lot of the great jrpg music already mentioned by others here.

The standard pick would be Ys: Oath in Felghana, which is quite awesome. But the combined soundtrack of "Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero / Azure" (especially Azure) is -- I think -- so full of jaw-dropping tracking genius that I don't even know where to begin, especially if you start cherry-picking different versions of the tracks across the original and "Evolution" versions of the game(s). This is mostly thanks to Saki Momoyama and Takahiro Unisuga.

An epic final dungeon thing:



And perhaps the most epic and over-the-top of many, many epic and over-the-top battle themes:


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## Jordan1566 (Oct 18, 2021)

Detroit become human. Although it's not my favourite, it's by far my most listened this year


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 19, 2021)

grabauf said:


> Another one to add to the list is Olivier Derivière.
> His score to Remember Me is awesome:



Whoa, you're right! His name totally slipped my mind, but "Vampyr" was awesome!


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## dyvoid (Oct 19, 2021)

I'm surprised noone has mentioned Jessica Curry yet. In particular her soundtracks for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture and Dear Esther are absolute gems.


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## Marcus Millfield (Oct 19, 2021)

Jeremy Soule, for his work on The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim).


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## Smikes77 (Oct 19, 2021)

Skyrim

Uncharted 2

Silent Hill 2

LoU


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## poly6 (Oct 19, 2021)

I'll throw a different one out there: Life is Strange. Indie/folk and the music fit the game mood/experience perfectly. The whole game was quite an experience, maybe not for everyone, but it's one of the few games where I sought out the soundtrack after the game.


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## Consona (Oct 22, 2021)

All the modern big budget games and movies can only wish they had music this good.


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## DJiLAND (Oct 22, 2021)

Favorite Game Composer... That's Me!
It's a joke.
I really like Bill Brown's music. And Austin Wintory!
I also like the Ori Soundtrack by Gareth Coker.
Michal Cielecki famous for us.
Ni no Kuni by Joe Hisaishi, Yasutomo Nishiki..Yoko Shimomura,
Keiichi Okabe..so many!


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## Mikro93 (Oct 22, 2021)

Some names that come to mind:

- Jesper Kyd, and his work the Hitman series, especially Contracts, still one of my favourite game soundtracks. Dark, electronic and orchestral-ish, minimalistic:



- Toby Fox and his incredible work on Undertale. Some very memorable themes:



And very recently:
- Kristofer Maddigan's soudntrack for Cuphead. Three hours of proper, delicious 30's style big band, I'm still amazed that this soundtrack was made possible for an indie game. It litterally made me buy the game.


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## Marcus Millfield (Oct 22, 2021)

Mikro93 said:


> And very recently:
> - Kristofer Maddigan's soudntrack for Cuphead. Three hours of proper, delicious 30's style big band, I'm still amazed that this soundtrack was made possible for an indie game. It litterally made me buy the game.



Oh man, I forgot all about this soundtrack. I watched this on Charles Cornell's YouTube channel and was blown away by this. As a former big band player myself, I really dig this, especially the latin groove tracks.


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## blaggins (Oct 22, 2021)

Came across Justin E. Bell's Pillars of Eternity soundtrack on Spotify the other day, I've been listening to it ever since. It's got a lot of strange little melodies that I find quite compelling. Mix of Budapest Art Orchestra recordings and VSTs depending on the track (apparently they only had the budget to record 40 minutes of music, so like half the soundtrack is recorded, and half is mockups). I was hunting around for more details and I found this article which goes into the process of creating in some depth: https://www.shacknews.com/article/1...y-and-the-infinity-engine-era-of-rpgs?page=14

I'm finding it strangely dry, particularly the mockups, but I think it worked very well within the aesthetic of the game itself.


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## ogrim1 (Oct 22, 2021)

Nobuo Uematsu- FFVII and nothing comes close to it.


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## c_voltage (Oct 22, 2021)

DJiLAND said:


> I really like Bill Brown's music


I'm just about wanted to say about Lineage II music )
Also fun, i googled out author name just recently from wiki, and it turned out that he made music to Rainbow Six first series too (98-99), which i very liked once too (although I have never been a particular listener to symphonic music, but pulled out at that time several tracks from there separately, pretty powerful themes). Not to mention Quake II (where, however, i did not remember the music, but anyway iconic game).


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## zoixx (Nov 5, 2021)

Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill series. Particularly the second game.

Kow Otani for his work on Shadow of the Colossus.


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## Baronvonheadless (Nov 7, 2021)

The Kotor 1 and Oblivion soundtrack by soule were very important to me when I was younger for an unplaced reason. Just beautiful music. I think oblivion is better than Skyrim. Just so warm, under rated. 

Kotor 2 sound track is so ominously beautiful as well. Some pieces that just bring out such nostalgia and even without that, are excellent rpg music. 

The Baldur gate and dragon age scores. 
Witcher 2 and 3. 

I love music for RPGs. Hands down my favorite. 

Would be a dream of mine to get into scoring RPGs


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