[News] Behind the story of Overwatch's Music

[D.CraZy]

Info :

Blizzard has launched a new Overwatch music collection with its "Cities and Countries" update. Composers, Adam Burgess and Derek Duke give us the lowdown on what goes behind composing the music for the hero shooter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're familiar with Overwatch, one of the things that make the po[CENSORED]r shooter stand out is the music. It may be the case that you

may not hear a lot of it given how short it is and the focus is shifted on gameplay. With that said, Blizzard has released the Overwatch: "cities and countries" album that showcases the individual intro tracks that play in the game based on different maps it is set in. The album is on every streaming platform and available to purchase. There's even an in game event tied to it featuring one of of its musically inclined and reluctant antagonists, Sigma.

I got to speak to veteran composers, Adam Burgess and Derek Duke who worked on the game's score and also gave us details behind the process of what went into the music and setting.

 

 

What were the various influences that you chose when making the music for maps ?

Adam: I think the biggest influence overall is the location it's actually set in. You know Overwatch is grounded in the real world and a lot of the maps are based in countries with rich musical heritages and we try to be respectful of that and put a lot of thought and effort in a way that we think fits the overwatch universe. Even the game modes can inspire the sounds, there's a whole lot of different approaches we've taken but we try to stay true to lore and character.

Derek: Also during the development of the music stretched out over the course of several months and it can start in one place and end up somewhere else. We collaborated with different members of the team so things are constantly in flux.

Are there any tracks in particular that were difficult to compose and was there any music that didn't make the final cut in the game ?

Derek: It seems the track that took the longest that challenged us the most was Junkertown.

Adam: It was unique because it stemmed from a cinematic that came out at the same time and being Australian, it was kind of exciting to see an Australian map being made. The music was challenging because we used to cinematic score as the building blocks for the map music and the cinematic takes a fair bit of time to make. Junkertown is all about fun, it's based on a song that Junkrat sings on, which you can hear on the album and I think that was the most difficult part of the music just because we had to translate from cinematic to make people excited to hear Junkrat sing.

 

 

Will we see an extended music album, the kind that Derek made with Lucio's Music Synaesthesia Auditiva ?

Derek: I think what we have here is already an extended album. So I'm sure as we can, we will try to give fan the best music experience, if opportunity permits, we'd love to do this but we're not committing to anything right now but it would be great to do that at some point.

Are there any musical easter eggs that we might have missed ? What sort of influences went into putting crossover references from other Blizzard games?

Adam: We try to put little snippets of things everywhere, most music we've hidden in the maps has been found. For example in Rialto, in the hotel lobby, the music that plays the retribution theme on traditional italian instruments. There's the approach is where we put music in the maps across the game. Everything we do is very collaborative, Blizzard world is a good result of that and we really want to show that this is a Blizzard theme park. Part of the track starts up triumphant and the more interesting part is that it allowed us to look to other franchies like WoW, HoTS, Diablo and Starcraft. We tried to meld them together and we found that the WoW themes layered well together interestingly and there's a lot of callbacks to Illidan. It was just an opportunity to create an easter egg that way that players who play different games can identify.

And finally, your favourite game ?

Adam: One of my first gaming loves was the Diablo franchise, so I spend a lot of time playing Diablo III. Now that it is available on the Nintendo Switch, I can take it anywhere, even though our current world situation means that area is confined to my apartment. Spending so much time at home has allowed me the time to catch up on a lot of amazing games that I missed along the way. Right now, I have been very taken with Red Dead Redemption 2 in particular, and of course, Animal Crossing.