5 Returnal
For the score to Returnal, composer Bobby Krlic builds a tossed sonic salad of electronics, voices and orchestra sounds. Of all the soundtracks on our list, Returnal is the closes to ambient music, less about melody and theme and more focused on musical texture and mood.
4 Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a beautiful, heart-warming game and the score by Jason Gallaty mirrors the exotic visuals. Gallaty uses percussion and the sounds of the Indonesian gamelan for musical colors not heard in any other game this year.
3 Halo Infinite
It’s entirely unsurprising that Halo Infinite’s score — by Gareth Coker, Curtis Schweitzer, Joel Corelitz — is one of the best of the year. Using orchestra, the traditional “Halo voices” and electronics, Halo’s music shifts from action cues to introspection and mysticism.
2 Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Richard Jacques wrote the action-focused orchestra score for Guardians, but most folks probably leaned into the game’s dozens of licensed songs from the 1980s. Plus, there was an entire album by the fictional Star-Lord Band, headed by the game’s audio supervisor Steve Szczepkowski.
1 Nier Replicant ver1.22
Of all the game music from the past year, Keiichi Okabe’s score for Nier Replicant leaned most heavily on the human voice. From stirring choirs to haunting solo singers, voices combined with orchestra, acoustic guitar or electronics are on every cue.
What was your favorite soundtrack of the year? What did we miss?
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