this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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EDIT: Seems dynamic music is back in style in some very recent games, many of which I haven't really played yet. Good. wholesome

For me, it's dynamic music, the kind that some games had that adjusted moment by moment to what was happening in the game.

The best-known example of this in the 90s game TIE Fighter, where the moment more enemy (or allied) ships showed up the music would have a little additional flourish to acknowledge the shift in battle. There were pre-battle tension tracks, battle music, complications of battle, grandiose flourishes for the arrival of enemy or even allied capital ships, and victory and failure music all ready to flow into the next seconds of the game.

A lesser-known but still excellent example of this was in Ultima Underworld and its sequel, where drawing a weapon had its own special "preparing for battle" tension music, getting attacked had a jump-out-of-your-skin joltingly sudden musical start that actually scared me as a kid when I got ambushed, music for battles going well, going poorly, victory and defeat.

I wish more games did those sort of second by second musical changes, but they've sort of fallen out of fashion for the most part. sicko-wistful

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[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you're talking about, because dynamic contextual music is pretty damn standard nowadays, especially for bigger budget titles. DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal made extensive use of it. BG3 does it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

They do have it, yes. I suppose I should rephrase it as "want to see it more again" because there was a decades-long dry spell of boring orchestral bits.