00:03When I heard that Santa Monica Studio was making a retro game done in the God of War style,
00:09oh, count me.
00:21When I was a kid, I loved scores for movies, TV shows, and video games.
00:28However, I realized it was melody over anything else.
00:33Melody was the most important thing to me and remains to this day.
00:36That means if a melody was performed by a giant symphony orchestra in a sweeping live-action space epic,
00:45or the melody was played by a sine wave, I loved it the same.
00:50Over the course of my career as a composer for video games, I've always been fascinated by the idea of
00:57returning
00:57to those sounds of the video game consoles that I grew up on.
01:01So over the years, I just started sampling all this old hardware.
01:04I didn't know what to do with it.
01:05I just loved these sounds and sort of added them to my own personal arsenal of colors.
01:10Sons of Sparta's soundtrack is a bit unique in that it does blend these modern orchestral and choir elements
01:17with these authentic retro sounds.
01:21When we heard that Barry McCreary wanted to be involved, we were thrilled.
01:25It was cool to talk to him about it because he grew up with these games as well.
01:28So he's familiar with the soundtracks and he's familiar with the chiptunes.
01:32We as a retro studio have done this many times.
01:34It was this awesome sort of, you know, meeting of the minds moment.
01:37One of the exciting things about working on God of War Sons of Sparta is getting to work with the
01:41team at Megacat
01:42because of the authenticity that they are able to channel into their games.
01:47So when I heard Santa Monica Studio was working with them, I was really excited.
01:51That's the biggest challenge we have.
01:52It's the first time for us working with one of the world's renowned artists.
01:56And through collaboration and critical thinking,
01:58we made our biggest challenge into one of our greatest achievements.
02:04So along comes God of War Sons of Sparta.
02:07Suddenly, here's a perfect opportunity for me to write a love letter to not only the music that I grew
02:13up on,
02:13but the hardware that created that music.
02:17One of the most special things about the music of Sons of Sparta
02:20is that it really makes like a good mix of orchestra, modern music, and also retro and chiptune music.
02:28That was the most challenging part for me.
02:29How do we make it into this new genre, make it feel true to that genre,
02:33but it still at its core, God of War.
02:38God of War Sons of Sparta combines three major elements.
02:44The God of War Greek era in the story, retro gaming aesthetics, and an epic emotional story.
02:52Since when have you been so cynical?
02:55Earth.
02:57So I created three different sonic palettes and started mixing and matching.
03:03As dependable as this.
03:05For the elements of the story pertaining to Kratos' Greek past, I drew from Greek folk music.
03:12I brought in instruments like the kithara, the aulos.
03:16These are stringed instruments and woodwind instruments that were around in some form during the ancient Greek era.
03:25Video games, when I was a kid, were predominantly made with sounds that you would call chiptunes today.
03:32And yet people made timeless classics out of these sounds.
03:35So I used a lot of samples and synthesis to create that retro gaming flavor.
03:43The third element is that big emotional story.
03:46I wanted to use full symphony and choir to tell that story the same way I would on any God
03:52of War game.
03:53That was really my biggest challenge in scoring God of War, Sons of Sparta,
03:56was in trying to figure out how to balance these three different sounds into something that
04:03gave each of them a moment to shine and yet felt like a cohesive whole.
04:09So in Sons of Sparta, we have these brothers, Kratos and Deimos.
04:13I only wrote one theme.
04:14I wrote a theme for the two of them.
04:17Now it might seem weird at first because we have two characters,
04:20characters, but ultimately the game is about their relationship.
04:23And I wanted to have one theme that would evolve
04:26as their relationship changes over the course of the game.
04:30What could have done this kind of damage?
04:32Looks like I got struck by lightning.
04:34I wanted to write a new theme that represents him and his brother Deimos as children.
04:39I realized it really wouldn't make sense to quote any of the music I wrote for the Norse saga.
04:45It didn't make sense really to quote any music from even the Greek games.
04:50because they were very different stories.
04:52And when I think about the main themes of the game, I just kept repeating them over and over.
04:57Duty, honor, brotherhood. That's what this game is about.
05:04You okay, brother?
05:05I'm fine. We just need to find another way back.
05:08And then I came up with this beautiful mournful tune.
05:10Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
05:17There's a nostalgic wistfulness to this theme that I think is what Kratos, as an old man,
05:23would think about his own youth.
05:26It definitely has all the catchiness of a retro game.
05:28Um, it feels memorable and inviting and exciting and it tells you something about
05:35where you are in the story, where you are on the map.
05:38And yet it also evolves as the gameplay evolves.
05:42It changes with the story.
05:44There's a few areas in the game that have this refrain of the game's main theme.
05:49And the way Bear uses that in each context is amazing.
05:53You as the sound designer, as the composer, and especially as the player in the end,
06:00we have to make sure that it hits just right and it feels perfect.
06:04Because a lot of the sound design, a lot of the music,
06:06essentially supports and drives the player's emotional state in the game.
06:12Something that surprised me, like, we're all working with the music,
06:15is just how much it could change.
06:17Just removing or adding some elements, it completely changed the music.
06:22Because you pull one of the elements, you pull the synth elements,
06:25and now it's like a slightly different score.
06:27You pull the Greek elements out, it's a different kind of score.
06:30So I think that was like a very interesting challenge for me,
06:32because it's something I haven't really had to deal with before.
06:37Part of the fun of this was thinking about the video games of my youth,
06:40where every area had a very specific musical feel.
06:44When you're playing an RPG and you get to the town, there was the town theme,
06:48or the combat theme, or the theme for the mountain,
06:50or the theme for the swamp, or the theme for the castle.
06:54I wanted to create that feeling with all our different environments.
06:57The idea of just having a single piece of music that played endlessly
07:01anytime you're in an area was sort of undercut by my ambitions as a writer.
07:07So we ended up combining these philosophies.
07:10Even though the music has this retro element to it,
07:13it's still delivered in this very modern way.
07:15It's a really tricky game in terms of figuring out where to transition in and out of music.
07:21We didn't want to just fade out the music or fade in the music, so that took a lot of
07:25finessing.
07:26So I think it was a really cool collaboration.
07:29How it blends seamlessly, perfectly fitting with the visuals,
07:32it's what makes the music stand out the most.
07:34For this one, we were like, hey, can we have a few cues and build unique content from all the
07:40different
07:41stems that we have? That was interesting to me, especially when I go edit and when I'm deconstructing
07:47a lot of the music and rebuilding it in these different ways. All the bosses still have a unique
07:51color, an interesting thing happening in all of them, but I also think it makes some of the other
07:56story bosses a bit more special because they're built in a different way.
08:03I'm excited for fans to hear this blending of modern and retro elements in the God of War universe
08:09in a way that feels like it belongs. I think blow them away.
08:12For me, I want the players to feel that they were part of a big experience with the music
08:19and the sound design of Sons of Sparta. People love the God of War games for a variety of reasons.
08:24You have this incredible combat, you have a gripping story, you have a mythological environment.
08:32God of War Sons of Sparta has all three of these things. To me, this is the 2D platformer
08:38that I've been dreaming of my entire life.
08:51I'll see you in a future, but this is a 4D platformer whom I love Joy Sticie.
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