Readers " Gambling " And " Canobus »Name Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous game with the best soundtrack on Ludi Awards – In addition, last year RPG has become " Our game of the year ".
We talked with Sergei Elobog , leading sound engineer Owlcat Studios (And soon there will be another interesting interview!) – on the creation of atmospheric soundtracks, specialization and inspiration of composers, self -development and much more. In addition, Sergey will give important advice to beginner developers.
What do you think Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous chose the winner in the nomination "Best Soundtrack"?
I can’t say one hundred percent, but I suspect that two factors played a big role. First – we released a large, rich in a role -playing game, for which we wrote a very large number of high -quality music. And the second – lovers were waiting for this game Pathfinder: Kingmaker, And they hoped that the second part would be better.
In particular, our music has really noticeably improved, which allows it to stand out against the background of releases of 2021 in this area. A year as a whole was not particularly rich in large releases, so, probably, this is normal.
Release Wrath of The Righteous really turned out to be more successful than that of the first part, with regard to some critical problems. Although there was a couple of unpleasant moments.
Unfortunately, yes, it is quite difficult to get away from this. Because the games of our format and volume are huge. And not all problems can be caught right before the release. Sometimes it is necessary that several thousand people play and find some details that are very difficult to find at the stage of QA testing and checking the developers themselves. This is our reality, but we try to quickly repair everything and roll out patches. And we will do everything so that the game lives happily ever after and becomes only better.
What feedback from testers and audience during beta was remembered most? Maybe some kind of joke was? Or you found a bug, the existence of which did not suspect?
This happens regularly, but since I do not follow all the bug-regions, bugs of a funny nature are usually remembered. For example, when the commander came to the brothel, sometimes during a meeting with one of the employees of the brothel had to take a companion, who instead of the commander underwent a test for resistance. That is, a commander spends the night with a girl, but at the same time he does something to his companion, throwing “checks” at this. It was very funny from a lorne point of view.
And another ever -living bug, about which they even wrote a fan fiction – a coffee cup that has a pepper icon. This bug was remembered by the players and us – he was in the game for so long. He does not break anything, so they do not get to him as quickly as to others. But he even inspired someone to write a small fan fiction on this topic!
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
And from the point of view of the sound, there are errors that are very remembered?
In Wrath of the Righteous there are noticeably smaller than it was in Kingmaker. I can recall the last one. Our most important mistake was when the game just came out. The player could choose a class of druid and companion, an animal-mammoth. And this mammoth was very loud noisy.
The mistake was that the opportunity to take a mammoth as a companion was not known to me before the release, so the appropriate setting on the animal was not made. He worked with the settings of an ordinary mammoth-doctor. And this is the creature that is obviously huge, aggressive and somewhere far. And we must hear well and understand that, most likely, we are hung quite painfully here. And when this mistake was discovered, I tried to make a copy of this mammoth and ask him the settings that would not enrage the players. This is probably the best that I remembered in principle.
In Wrath of the Righteous, a smaller mistake. Somewhere sounds could be well-equipped, background elements. Somewhere, perhaps, they did not have time to change the musical set to the relevant, but in general the game feels much better.
It must be difficult to create sound effects of conditioned mammoths or dragons? What else can the difficulties include?
I would not say that this is a difficulty. This is our basis and our bread. In principle, sound design in any area implies not meticulous reconstruction of the acoustic environment and physics. Our task is to tell a story and convey everything you need with suitable means. Yes, we often have to come up with some sound effects, create them using installation, synthesizers or distortion of voice, but our task is not to make a physically real copy. Our task is to make the player believe.
All difficulties follow from here: it is necessary to make sure that technical capabilities help improve the aesthetics of the project and help to immerse the player into this project. How we achieve this result, the player usually does not worry. It can be a synthesis, it can be an actor or manipulation. The main thing for him is to hear this sound, and so that this sound does not knock it out of the atmosphere of the game and evoke the necessary emotions.
Which is more complicated: create sounds for environment and characters or write music?
I would not compare these disciplines. We work with sound material, but these are completely different branches. Therefore, the comparison will not be completely correct.
There are people who specialize in sound effects. At the same time, someone best makes the sounds of the environment and feels how to make the location breathes the right atmosphere. Someone specializes in animals and monsters, because he understands how to make an inspiring voice in which you believe, even for creatures that never existed. With music exactly the same. There are people who specialize in some genre, and they do an excellent job in this genre. She is there and there is difficult. But rarely happens when you need to do everything.
In our work, specialists combining music and sound are a rarity. Using RPG terms, this is literally pumping two classes. Both that, and another requires time, investment of strength, attention and nerves to get a decent result. Therefore, if you choose this path, be prepared that, most likely, most of the life will take it all. And it is much easier to download one class and become a brighter specialist in it.
Share a secret: how to create music that players will listen to a hundred hours, and which they will not get tired?
This is a difficult task. There are different ways how to solve it. And we have chosen a completely concrete and easiest way: firstly, we need https://sister-site.org/betfred-casino/ as many different music as possible. If in Kingmaker we had a little more than an hour of music, then in Wrath of the Righteous the time has reached an hour and forty minutes with a penny. That is, we significantly increased the volume of music.
Secondly, we decided to approach the writing of the soundtrack as a proven way. There is a modern way to work with music-this is adaptive-interactive music. When the musical composition has several degrees of tension: there is a study of locations, there is a battle and stealth, and so on. And the music is written so that it plays constantly, but does not attract much attention until it is needed. That is, we will most often hear bright music either during the plot scene, or during the battle. And during the study of the location, for example, it merges with the location embosses. And she does not distract us from our actions.
What is the difficulty of writing such music? It has to be written in layers, hijacked. So that it can be combined in different combinations and smoothly transferred from one state to another. And this is a little prevented from making music more vivid and more traditional, from our point of view.
Starting the second project, we decided to make the soundtrack more vivid and noticeably more epic, because the very nature of the game requires this. We are already telling not a local story about the hobby forests, relatively speaking, we begin to fight with demons and generally participate in world events. Music had to go up to this level.
And we decided that we would not change the scheme to fully adaptive, we will save the same approach as in Kingmaker: when we have several separate compositions for studying locations, several separate compositions for battles and several separate compositions for plot scenes. They do not flow into each other adaptive, they simply change. But at the same time, each composition tries to be bright and memorable.
And in order to better distinguish music to us, we wrote before starting work on the game Big “Roadmap”, a plan for the chapters of the game. And for each chapter we allocated key locations, we found out in which settings, with which atmosphere and what emotions, these locations are located, and thus we found out how much and what music we will need.
How you evaluated whether music is suitable or not suitable for the location? Were there the moments that the track was written, you listened to it and realized that it did not fall into the mood?
Yes, regularly. This is a normal workflow. Our composers are very tightly involved in the development. That is, even at the beginning of work, we agree that our music can have a lot of iterations, as we try to weave music into the game as best as possible.
Composers receive before starting work, if there is a ready -made location, recording from this location. Often – right with the noise of the environment. Because sound is usually done earlier. If there is no such location, then the composer receives at least concept arts and some reference videos from other media, so that there is a presentation. And the result of his work is usually demonstrated by the entire team.
At the same time, a professional assessment is not given the whole team. We have a Musical Director, we have a creative director of a project who acts literally a director of the whole game. And he knows exactly how the game should sound, what emotions should be, what should be like. Accordingly, his opinion is critical in this regard.
We sometimes can accept the opinion of other team members in the same way if it coincides with the vision of the creative director. And this sometimes helps, because the creative director is also a person, he has a vision, but it can sometimes be too bold or individual. And he may not be a completely understood team. In such cases, if there are many comments of other people, we discuss it, and then decide whether we go as we were going, or we need to make edits.
And all tracks go through this. Sometimes it happens that one composition undergoes from three to six iterations, small or large. And I think this is normal, you can’t get away from it.
What composition did you redo the most?
I will remember two compositions: this is the main topic, we spent three months on it. And about six iterations with three different branches, how to make the main topic. If you go to the page of the game in Steam, you can find a post and read more about it, listen to examples. It was a long search when we tried different options, including strange and bold. And with the sixth attempt we found what we liked in the end.
And the second composition, on which we also spent a lot of time and were not fully sure that we got it – this is a mythical theme of the lich. Because the lich is a symbol that is already well disclosed in other games and media. All people have certain associations.
Someone really likes, for example, Necropolis from the third " Heroes ", And they would like to hear just such music, someone likes how the lich is depicted in some film, and they would like to hear this way, but there is an opinion that the lich in our game is a rather unique mythical path, he has your tasks, your mood.
And all these points of view fought a little with each other. And I remember that we made about seven versions with a personal before we reached the one that is now in the game. And we worried about whether it was bad after all creative discussions? Was we too much succumbed to these collegial decisions?
But in the end, everything seems to be fine. People on the topic of a lich do not swear. And we ourselves are listening and understanding that we have achieved our goal. She has a sound, there are references familiar from other people's templates. And at the same time she fulfills her goal. This is a lich, our lich. But we came to him with difficulty.
How did you record music for Wrath of the Righteous? You have orchestral tracks, part with the choir … you recorded them live or more resorted to computer technologies?
The sound of the soundtrack live is a very expensive pleasure. And Covid played his role in this. Initially, the entire soundtrack is written using a computer and virtual tools. At the same time, we plan some parts in advance, some parties, usually soloing tools or vocal parties, then write down then. Because these things noticeably revive music.
The idea of writing down the orchestra appeared when we started the campaign on Kickstarter. This is a worthy goal. And we thought that we have very good plot topics that will only win if you write them out live. It really costs a lot of money, but a living record at the same time raises the sound quality and atmospheric composition at the same time.
When our betors helped us to achieve this goal, we began to contact the organization of the orchestral recording. But Covid prevented us, we could not choose the perfect time and the ideal hall for us. But nevertheless, what we recorded, sounds, in my opinion, with dignity.
And for me these seven compositions are one of the best of what you can meet in the game. Not only because they were recorded live, but simply because these are topics that we have chosen by their importance for a living recording. They themselves are very good.
And one of these topics is the main topic. And the rest?
This is the topic of taking mythical forces. Players love her very much. If you go to our YouTube channel, she collected most likes and comments.
I liked one comment where the person wrote that this is the topic of the battle with the boss, but in this case, the boss is you.
We wrote it for such a purpose, and people remembered her! And she in a living version sounds really roofing. Who played the game, he will understand.
We recorded the themes of demon-lords and battles with them. Our key antagonists, their plot and military compositions, are recorded by live tools. We also recorded live instruments the topic of traveling on the world map that sounds in the first two chapters. Because we meet this topic quite often. And I would like her to more often please players.
In addition, in our compositions there is a recording of an electric guitar, it is also completely alive. Our composer Dmitry Silantyev He plays pretty well on an electric guitar and prescribed metal parties himself. In particular, if you listen to the topic of a mythical demon, this is completely his work.
What track do you like most?
I would call a few. I would say that I love the topics of the bosses more: both plot and battles with them. Again, I will not be called specifically, but both compositions written for battles with bosses, in my opinion, are just chic. They are a very high level both in composition and sound. And in the end they touch the soul. Well, personally me.
And I really like the music that we wrote at the very beginning for a location in a winter setting. During the development, we called this setting " Karelia ". After the main topic, this was the first game music to which we took up. And we had a clear desire to make it characteristic lyrical and empty, cold and bewitching.
We had a reference – the topic " Tundra "Jeremy Soul from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. We focused on her, we got it in our own way, but it turned out exactly what we wanted-lyrical, cold, empty music that literally draws a picture of a snowy, lonely field and empty horizon before our eyes. And I really like her.
And you are often inspired by soundtracks of other media, games and films?
Yes, constantly. We cannot take ourselves out that we do not know and did not hear. Creativity is the knowledge of the world and its rethinking. Only after that does an author's view of this world appear. He can repeat what they did before you, he can serve it from a different angle, he can bring something new.
Therefore, all work on music is built in this way. We know what we want, and work from other games and cinema helps us in this, some groups. We understand what sound and what emotions we want to achieve.
Sometimes this, unfortunately, completely does not solve the problem, because there are difficult points. Like a lice mythical theme, when we did not have a clear musical reference. That is, there were no people who did exactly as we need. And the composer could listen, think and do as it should. No.
In such cases, we have work through creative rethinking and reconstruction of emotions based on text or art. A person looks at the picture, reads a description and some sentences, where it is written that the player should feel in this location or situation. And the composer is trying to feel it on his own, using different tools, motives and combinations. It is more complicated.
Did you have a desire to collaborate with some eminent composer or group? And if so, then with whom exactly?
On Kingmaker, we worked with Inon Tsur. We wrote four compositions, they were good and beautiful. They literally set the basis for music at Kingmaker. Because when we were just starting, we were not sure that we ourselves can make music correctly from scratch.
Then we finished work on Kingmaker, the game came out, we read the reviews and listened well to music ourselves well. And we realized that our composers are already strong enough to carry out creative work on building a new project on their own. And when we started a new game, we decided that this time we did not want to invite some big name.
We want, rather, to grow our big name. Independently, through labor and highly set the bar.
And I believe that we reach this purpose. Maybe not everyone will agree, but the music that we have now wrote is no worse than what INON CUR has done for us in the last project.
In addition to Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Inon CUR worked on music for the games of the Syberia series (in the picture), Fallout, Dragon Age, Prince of Persia and not only.
Some of your tracks are on YouTube, but, apparently, you will not upload everything there . And what is the fate of ordinary game music? Whether it is poured into music services, used in the following projects?
Depends on the success of the project. If he was good, music will live and spread people. That is, they are actively divided by it, other composers write caverses on it. She literally flies through people, she spreads the lead and inspires people to get acquainted with the game.
This is one of the main factors why you should invest in music in the game. Because it is very easily remembered, it is memorial. If some melody settled in memory, she will sit there for a very long time. Accordingly, if the game failed, the music has a chance to remain unheard and unacceptable, and then its fate depends only on the authors of the game.
As for us, we love our music, we are proud of it. Therefore, we still poured it all on YouTube in one video, everything is available freely. And in the same way we poured it on all available music services. It can be found on Yandex, on Spotify and Deezer, you can even listen to VKontakte quite officially.
As for re -use, we had to resort to Wrath of the Righteous to this, because there were settings and locations that were literally taken from Kingmaker. There are few of them, but they were. And it would be foolish for them to write new music. We just took several musical topics from Kingmaker and connected them in the new game.
And this turned out to be good too, because the people who passed Kingmaker with great pleasure after demonic adventures come to the autumn forest, where the birds sing, all so bright, more or less bright, and they hear familiar, not straining, lyrical-calm music From Kingmaker. And they are very pleased. Our music in this regard does not die and lives.
Of course, you had a lot of time to write music. But how to write more than 50 tracks for the game and not go crazy?
Perhaps this is worth asking composers. I personally never wrote such a large amount of music. In our case, this volume is divided into several composers. There are pros and cons of.
I'll start with the minuses: when several different composers work on the game, the soundtrack is less uniform. Because people have different thinking, different musical preferences and approaches. Therefore, their musical compositions can significantly differ from each other in nature. And this is clearly noticeable when you listen to the soundtrack with one album. This is such a conditional minus.
But we do not release the soundtrack as an album. We write music for the game. And our game has a large number of different locations and moods where you need different music. And one composer makes in a certain style better than another. That is, one person has better, lifting topics, and the second loves darkness and tin.
We divided the soundtrack between 5 composers, each of which was responsible for a certain block of directions. We have Dmitry Silantyev , leading composer of our game, and about 70% of the music was made by him. And the remaining 30% were divided between four more composers who were responsible for other blocks.
Suppose there is Dmitry Makarov , which many know under the pseudonym Dryante. He is a fairly famous performer of Folk Cavers and Folk Music on YouTube. He wrote music for the tavern for us. She is excellent, incendiary and bright. It is absolutely not similar to the rest of the music, but at the same time perfectly fulfills its role. People launch the game, appear on the starting location, market area where the festival takes place. And I saw comments that people stayed there for 20-30 minutes-they just liked the music and wanted to listen to her.
Do we have a place where you can now learn to create music for games? Or you must first study the composer ? How it works now?
Strictly individual. I'm not sure that we have formal game music training programs. There are online courses and institutions that are engaged in the training of game specialists. Including audio. For example, Sound Design Institute or XSSR Academy. As far as I remember, there are courses or programs dedicated to music. But the basis, of course, is a traditional musical education and a lot of experience.
Because you can learn how to develop games, but this will not help if a person does not know how to write music itself. That is, to learn how to work with games much faster and easier than to learn how to write good music. Therefore, the traditional path: first, a person learns to write music, just good, high -quality and interesting music. And then he can increase his level of knowledge either independently or with the help of courses, or when working with some independent projects.
What is the difference between game music and the rest? Game music must be adaptive, changing, it should work on different situations. And she is non -linear, usually. The game is always a dynamic process. A person can go here or here, do it or whether. Accordingly, the music should change quickly, transmitting the necessary emotions. At the same time remain more or less in the same stylistic framework. And this usually people learn in practice.
Suppose you could go into the past, by the beginning of Wrath of the Righteous, and change one thing in development: what would you do?
I will say one thing that will not be clear to everyone, but which personally brought me a lot of pain. I will say to myself: "Please put in order a working project with sound". I will explain why.
Wrath of the Righteous is a game made on the basis of Kingmaker. We have a common base, a common engine. When we started making a new game, we took as a basis a musical and sound project from Kingmaker as is. And they began to add, add, add and change something to it … And what it led to?
Many things have become confusing. Because instead of two separate projects with their logic, a kind of monster is obtained, where there are pieces of old and new game that can interfere with each other, and in general it looks pretty scary.
Therefore, my main advice at the beginning of a new project, even from scratch, at least based on the already created – create a clear, slender, logical system by which everything will work, and only after that move on. In particular, this will help to avoid all sorts of interesting bugs. These are quite specific moments, but sometimes I see them in the summer. And I am sad about this.
Have you made any other lessons from the development that will come in handy both to you and other developers?
So many. I will call one more point, because I can speak for a long time on this topic. It is better to write some kind of article on this topic, and I will most likely write an article when there will be Post-Mortem on Wrath of the Righteous. In addition to systematicity in the project, I would note the best communications between the development teams.
A large number of people work on the game. We have 60-80 people in our staff: these are designers, artists, programmers … And the game is such an entity that is constantly changing, something is added to it. At the same time, sound is such a thing that has penetration absolutely everywhere. That is, everything that other departments did should be supported by the sound.
Accordingly, if there is no established communication system between departments, somewhere something has changed or added, and the sound may not be prepared or correct. Therefore, one of the main things is to try to build good communication, which greatly affects the overall quality of sound and the game as a whole.
Dark Souls 3
What games most did you play in 2021?
I will pass the games with a big delay, because I have little time, and the baclog is large, in 2021 I finally asked for a little tired of pleasure and a little charter Dark Souls 3. But games Fromsoftware All are on the verge of pleasure and masochism.
And with pleasure spent several tens of hours on a role -playing game YS Seven Company NIHON FALCOM. Unlike Dark Souls, this is literally a very light and bright game. I love this series for her music, it is combat, energetic and very fascinating. She is not worried about whether she’s getting tired of the player or not, she declares herself as a full -fledged song: man, you came to play our game, and you will listen to our awesome musical album. This series positions itself. And I went through the game with great pleasure.
I also managed to start Disco Elysium, I went a little. It was a rather interesting experience. But I have postponed the game for now, I hope to return to it soon, I like it. She is peculiar.
In 2021, he was supposed to exit and Baldur ’ S Gate 3. What do you think about Baldur ’ S Gate both as a player and as a sound specialist?
I like what does Larian , Because they really have very high -quality games. This applies to sound and everything else. And these games really trample a completely new, another path. If we initially adhered to a more traditional approach to RPG that our audience appreciates, then in Larian they strive to enter the niche between mass and narrow orientation, and they do it very well.
Therefore, when it comes out Baldur’s Gate 3, I will be happy to play it. What I managed to see, I liked. Their process itself is quite pleasant and not straining, but forcing them to think somewhere and understand. I only wish them good luck. And I hope that everything will be fine with them. Because we are in about the same niche, and we are interested in this niche there are more people.
Baldur’s Gate 3
And what about Russian RPG that came out in 2021? Like Enced, "Black Book" and Atom RPG Trudograd. You played one of this, saw?
I saw, but did not play, there was no much time. On ENCASED I entered the Kickstarter money and helped a little advisations during the development.
Black Book I was a dark horse for me, about which I did not know anything, but visually and according to reviews this is a very interesting project. Therefore, I have it somewhere in the "List of the desired" lies.
Atom RPG I also know and really hope to get to him because I love Fallout. And as I understand it, Atom RPG was close to the spirit of Fallout, but with our color. And, probably, it will give me pleasure.
I am very glad that such games in principle appeared, that there are more of them. They form a niche, form specialists. A new school of role -playing games appears in Russia. And it's very cool. Someday it will give a qualitative leap, and people who want our Russian "" Witcher ", In this regard there is hope. Because there is something to grow from.
What do you think of the blockchain and NFT? How appropriate it is in games and you need now?
It seems to me that the decisions of the input of NFT come mainly from people who lead companies. And they have their own thoughts on this topic. As a developer, I can say that I don't like it and I don't welcome it. And I hope that this will not touch us. Because I do not see urgent benefits or solving urgent problems thanks to this technology, and especially in games. At least I do not see it necessary for what I do.
What can you say finally loyal fans and players?
I want to say many thanks for being supported and believed in us. Because it very much affected life in the studio and our fate. We hope that we will not disappoint those who love our games, and we will also be able to please those who do not love them yet, but in principle are interested in. I hope we will delight you with more than one project for many hours.
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