Some of history’s greatest pop albums are video games

We call them “video games” but they’d be nothing without their audio. To reflect on 40 years of game development is to call to mind thousands of tunes and sound effects, from the baying of air raid sirens in horror game Silent Hill, to the buzzing of your energy shield in Halo. Many of these compositions and effects serve a practical role: in the original Super Mario games, for instance, the soundtrack speeds up as the level timer ticks down, nudging the tardy player to get their skates on. Others play a part in the unfolding of a drama: in BioWare’s galaxy-straddling Mass Effect games, key revelations about the universe’s origins coincide with a poignant reprisal of the wistful main theme.

For all this, sound and music get short shrift in discussions around games. This reflects the over-emphasis on visual fidelity in marketing, which has given rise to a cottage industry of enthusiasts who comb screenshots and trailers for the slightest blemish. But it’s also simply because audio in general eludes conscious evaluation, tapping directly into your bodily chemistry. You may not notice what it’s doing to you till you stop listening. “So much of the feel of a game in your hands comes from sound,” says Simon Flesser, co-founder of Malmö, Sweden-based studio Simogo. “It’s so sad when people turn it off.”

“Just generally, I find it very inspiring to look at other types of media or experiences for inspiration, for both vibes and how they’re structured,” he continues. “But music has always been very specifically related to our games. I think almost all of them have been born out of a vibe from a single song, even if [those songs] don’t specifically end up being an influence on the actual music. The initial idea of Sayonara Wild Heartswas really born from hearing Lord Huron’s World Ender, which is a song about an undead motorcycle-riding avenger.”