The Rise of Video Game Music
By Evan Santoso, 2025-2026 Student Executive Committee Production Manager
April 29th, 2026
Video games have always been seen as a niche form of entertainment for most people. If you asked someone if they thought it was an art form before the 2000s, they would probably laugh at you and call you crazy. But ever since a small little game, made by Konami, called Metal Gear Solid was released in 1998, the industry started a massive shift. Rather than the old arcade-like games focused on pure gameplay, Metal Gear Solid pushed for more cinematic stories and Hollywood style of games that have become extremely popular as of late. The one thing that stood out for this particular game was its soundtrack. Compared to other pieces from games at the time, Metal Gear Solid’s track, “The Best is Yet to Come” by Rika Muranaka was incredibly theatrical. It used Gaelic singing to convey a haunting and mysterious feeling to the piece and made it feel like something you would hear from an action espionage blockbuster of the 90s.
Many game developers noticed what Metal Gear Solid was doing and decided to follow in its footsteps, creating a more cinematic and narrative focus experience rather than just gameplay. This in turn caused the soundtracks of these games to shift more towards emotional pieces that would pull at the heartstrings of gamers. One game that pushed this agenda more than any other game at the time was Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” from 2013. The game centers around the characters of Joel, a hardened survivor of the viral outbreak of Cordyceps, and Ellie, a young girl who seems to be immune to the infection and is the key to find a cure, as they try to find a group called the Fireflies so they can make a cure from Ellie. From an interview with the composer Gustavo Santaolalla, he said that “from the very start, the music of The Last of Us was meant to be a part of the DNA of Joel, Ellie, and everything they went through. And if the music made people cry along the way, even better”.
A key example of this is the song “All gone”. The piece is absolutely haunting and is played in very emotional parts of the game, specifically during the opening of the game when Sarah, Joel’s daughter, dies and again at the end of the game when Joel lies to Ellie about his slaughter of the Fireflies to protect his relationship with her. In both instances, at the very first moment of it playing, the player makes a connection that this piece is related to grief, loss, and tragedy. When the piece plays at the end of the game, it now symbolizes how Joel couldn’t go through the grief and pain of losing another daughter, blood related or not, and now has to lie to Ellie to protect his relationship with her. The genius of this emotional piece is what gave rise to video game music growing from something in the background to a core pillar in games.
This trend of video game music becoming more cinematic did not only affect the AAA games industry, it also affected the indie game space. There are countless examples of this but the most recent and popular example is the soundtrack of 2025 winner of the Game Awards, “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” by Sandfall Interactive. To demonstrate how popular the music became, it topped multiple music billboards and international charts, even surpassing modern giants like Bad Bunny. The music was composed by Lorien Testard, who according to creative director Guillaume Broche, was found on an obscure french music form and Soundcloud. Then he reached out to vocalist Alice Duport-Percier to work on the soundtrack and the rest is history.
A brief explanation of the plot of Expedition 33 is that once a year, an entity called The Paintress rises from the bottom of her monolith to paint her cursed number on it. And everyone of or over the age will vanish into smoke and flower petals in an event known as the Gommage. In retaliation, the people of the Island continent of Luimere send an expedition of people one year younger than the number on the monolith with one impossible mission, to destroy The Paintress, so she may never paint death again.
With a plot like that, it is quite shocking that the piece with the most emotional impact is the music played at the title screen of the game, simply named “Alicia”. The piece is reminiscent of the romantic era of music because of its emphasis on raw emotions. The vocals provided by Percier give a melancholic feeling to the song which is perfect with how the plot is so bleak. For 67 years, every expedition has failed to stop The Paintress from slowly killing the population of Lumiere and the accompanying strings and piano represent the hope of the people fading as more and more people vanish without leaving a trace. Alicia encapsulates the absolute disparity of the plot and is beautifully performed.
At the end of the day, video games have been propelled into being called true art in storytelling, design, and music. So the next time you complete a video game that made you cry and wish there was more, know that the music was a part of the process.
Work Cited
Yarwood, Jack. “Flashback: The Story behind Metal Gear Solid’s “the Best Is yet to Come.”” Time Extension, 17 Nov. 2022, www.timeextension.com/features/flashback-the-story-behind-metal-gear-solids-the-best-is-yet-to-come.
Hale, Lyra. “INTERVIEW: Gustavo Santaolalla Talks Bringing “the Last of Us” to Life through Music.” Remezcla, 20 Mar. 2023, remezcla.com/features/film/interview-composer-gustavo-santaolalla-talks-bringing-the-last-of-us-to-life-through-music/.
Robinson, Andy. “Now Clair Obscur’s Soundtrack Is Breaking Records, Charting above Bad Bunny.” VGC, Video Games Chronicle, 13 Feb. 2026, www.videogameschronicle.com/news/now-clair-obscurs-soundtrack-is-breaking-records-charting-above-bad-bunny/. Accessed 3 Mar. 2026.
Hilliard, Kyle. “Clair Obscur’s Composer Talks Going from Unknown to Scoring 2025’S Most Celebrated RPG.” Game Informer, 24 Apr. 2025, gameinformer.com/interview/2025/05/16/clair-obscurs-composer-talks-going-from-unknown-to-scoring-2025s-most.
