A Layman's Thoughs on Game Music

[MetalRenard]

Lovely article, DerVVulfman!
Another aspect of music for games to consider is adaptive music. You briefly touched upon it in "Mood Swings", but it's possible, using systems such as Wwise, to create a soundtrack which changes depending on the situation in which the player finds themself.

For example, you compose complex orchestral piece for fields which has a slow melody, a fast melody, percussion and a variety of different instruments playing each part (strings and brass for melody, small drums and big drums for percussion).
When using Wwise, you tell the program how to play each instrumental layer; always play the strings. Only play the percussion when on horseback, only play brass when near enemies, for example. You reserve the fast melody for transitions between each situation.

The advantage of this is we're no longer limited to just one theme per area. In fact, game music became so much more cinematic once this technology was fully implemented and is so much better for it, in context.

Personally, I prefer the old way for several reasons, however. Firstly, you tend to get more melodic content the old way. Secondly, you can listen to it as a whole piece and enjoy it as it has a start, middle and end whereas music for adaptive OSTs tends to be less structured. Finally, it's what I grew up with and definitely holds some nostalgia for me.