本文原作者：Sean Cleaver 译者ciel chen

我们此次采访了作曲家Joris de Man、音乐作曲和制作二人组The Flight以及Guerrilla的音乐监制Lucas van Tol。

《地平线：零之黎明》是2017年、甚至可以说近是几年来最有趣的游戏之一。在这个Aloy和Nora族人居住的世界里，每一个可以想到的细节蕴含了大量来自团队无微不至的心血与投入。

游戏中的音乐模块也是音乐制作团队的呕心沥血之作。于是我们对这个游戏开发背后的音乐创作人(音乐作曲/制作二人组The Flight、Ivor Norvello奖得主作曲家Joris de Man以及Guerrilla的音乐监制Lucas van Tol)请教了一些问题。

你接下来将要读到的内容将不仅限于探索游戏团队工作室是如何写作和如何决策的，而且会深入研究The Flight是如何用Youtube视频向美术设计师展示他们是如何在游戏中演奏乐器从而演绎出Aloy主题曲背后的故事的。要提醒的是，接下来有轻微剧透。

你们是如何体现《地平线：零之黎明》中的三大支柱元素——机械生物，人类部落，自然景观各自特色的？

The Flight:对我们来说，要体现这三大支柱元素在音乐上的不同特色并没有那么难；因为在我们开始工作的第一天Guerilla公司方面就已经把这些特点告诉我们了。我们和Joris的职责就是把这些主题含义通过游戏音乐传达给玩家。我们首先关注的是如何呈递游戏的自然景观——在这个绚丽多彩、广袤无垠的世界里，我们用多种给人以探索之感的音乐来表现出这样的美景。

机械生物是比较深沉的那部分内容，他们最常出现在打斗中，所以我们需要一种高科技金属类音乐来表现这一特色。接着人类部落一部分主要是由人类组成，而这些人类有些十分原始而幼稚，有些却比较先进。我们试图通过不同音乐表现来体现他们不同的文明程度，但同时又希望在不同的音乐中保持共有的自然原始感。

在这个苍翠繁茂的世界里，高科技的机械生物和原始人类部落这部分内容让玩家对游戏充满了期待。

Joris de Man：这是编曲团队所面对的挑战之一，我们为解决这些，在处理音乐和音速上花了相当大一部分时间。

体现机械生物的世界是最简单的部分了：冷调的机械感音乐是通过铁和金属类的碰撞产生的脉冲制成的电子合成音来延展体现那种金属音色的。

对于人类部落这一部分音乐，我们首先想到的是部落人是如何演奏音乐的——似乎他们首次对音乐有所接触是通过敲击、吹气或者用自己的声音，所以这部分音乐创意需要我们自己探索。但是对于这些在人类开启全新的文明时期里无根源可追溯的部落，传统乐器是不适用的。

Guerrilla明确指出，不要让任何音乐类型或音乐风格让背景音乐把部落归类于某一种族，于是我们就试图用不同的方式演奏乐器——用琴拨弹大提琴、用琴弓背弹吉他和钢琴的 琴弦以及其他等等新的弹奏方式。

Soundwise的Lucas van Tol（音乐总监）也建议我们去找寻一种更小更由亲密感的声音，这种声音要不加修饰，跟某些游戏所寻求的宏大气势的音乐类型恰恰相反，这种声音更注重乐器的独奏和“挖掘不同的音效”，跟那些大型的音乐集合体完全不同。

最后一个要点——我知道Guerrilla工作室对笛乐不太感冒的，尤其是高音类的（在最开始的那部分我总要在demoz中的Killzones哪里放上一些长笛乐和短笛乐！），所以我就尽可能用最低的笛声，我找到了一种“最低音长笛”。尽管它是这一种金属乐器，但它的声音听起来很有部落感，它有着奇特的低沉和嘶哑声，在过度用力吹奏时会发出一种非常有趣的破音声。所以就是以上这些内容撑起了人类部落这一支柱元素的。

自然景观这部分其实也可以说是最简单的——通过远程音效素材（distant pads）和实验室声效所营造的悠扬和弦声，其音效效果似乎挺好的。我还创作了一种通过我自己轻吹泰国竹笛发出声音的采样制成的音效素材，所以这个音效基本没有调，不过有好多气音。由于我们把采样音效载到了Kontakt和Omnisphere中，所以我们还可以拿来用作后期音效素材，通过将其解构从而产生更多的音效组合。

Lucas van Tol：在Joris和The Fight组合加入我们之前很久的时候，曾经有一份短文档，上面有Mathijs de Jonge（我们的游戏总监）和音效团队列出的想要关注的内容列表。列表内容中包含了三个支柱元素。我们直接将其译为：机器人->电子乐、部落->用简单乐器和自然音效做的粗糙无修饰的声音效果->有机、郁郁葱葱的声音元素。列表上列出的这些实际上正就是我们所希望作曲人能够通过音乐测试找到的音乐内容。而Joris和The Fight组合想出的方法正契合了这些要求的内容。

在你找到灵感的时候，你是如何知道在不同配乐不同场景下应使用的乐器的？

The Fight:我们和Lucas在Guerrilla的时候就已经对细节进行了很多讨论，Lucas在乐器法和感触方面已经有很深的理解和看法了。我们讨论了Aloy（游戏女主），她生存的世界以及围绕着她发生的故事线路。由于这个世界被各个种族划分成了不同的地域，我们为每个部落考虑属于他们各自的乐器音效以为他们每个部落烙以不同的音效印记。

我们尝试用不同的方式来演奏现有的乐器，我们大部分时候都在考虑当人们重新发现这些乐器的时他们会如何演奏这些乐器。我们其中一个关键的音效素材就是通过用琴弓拉谐振器吉他加上不同大小的口风琴音乐做出来的——我们称之为“地平线交响乐”！

Joris de Man：我制作音乐的素材就是由模拟合成器音效、大提琴音、倍低音长笛音、现成音效以及Circle Percussion的音效（剧情声作曲人Niels van der Leest介绍给我们的人）组成的。Julie Elven则是整个音乐团队所欠缺的最后一块拼图，在电子游戏展览会上的预告片音乐展出后反响了得，Julie Elven通过歌唱的声音，以音乐呈现艾洛伊的情绪经历。

所以当场景动画暗藏了Aloy的情感变化时，那么Julie Elven的声音和Aloy所经历主题的变换（正如在主菜单听到的那样）似乎正刚好相互契合了。

一切基于角色行动的背景音乐都来自于Circle Percussion，因为它能即刻给玩家以一种侵略性和部落感的音效；而当故事的发展以机械世界或者“旧”科技（先前的文明）为主时，我们则使用加工电子乐器或者模拟合成器的音效。

Lucas van Tol:在《地平线》早期开发期间，我曾让Niels van der Leest（他是一名专业的敲击乐乐手兼游戏作曲人，我在几个月前见过他）整理一份有关部落乐器的文件。我们清楚的知道自己大概的游戏定位，并掌握了大量游戏部落的信息。通过将这些信息的整合，可以知道各部落会使用哪些材料作为乐器，并且能够知道他们是如何弹奏这些乐器的。

比如说，Nora族对音乐的了解非常少，所以他们的音乐就相对简单；而Carja人对音乐非常敏感，所以我们在做他们的音乐上可以放上整个唱诗班（就打个比方而已）。通过Circle Percussion(一个荷兰史诗鼓剧团)，我们可以将所有的鼓声结合在我们的剧情音乐和原声音乐集中——并且所有的作曲人都会“使用”Niels（因为Niels曾经也参加过Circle Percussion内容的制作）来记录现场打击乐曲。

游戏中的配乐有时能让人感受到游戏世界中的往昔历史与某种程度的悲戚感，而有时又能保持一种较猛烈，富含行动力的节奏感。你们是怎么平衡这两方面的？

Joris de Man:这两方面的平衡，部分我们是在拥有更多主题深化空间的过场动画中解决的。这里的历史往昔、《地平线：零之黎明》的意义之所在以及Aloy的前世今生都是故事情节中的关键部分，所以这里有我们在音乐上的大量探索机会，而且我对于为此撰写主题意义材料非常累在其中，这里的主旨我可以重复用在不同的场景中。

但是这种紧凑行动和忧郁配乐之间的平衡很大程度上是受各个不同地区和不同类型的事件影响的。

Lucas在配曲这方面的平衡中做得非常出色，他为我们描绘了了各种不同的地区、居住在这些地区的不同部落还有他们之间的差异。有一些部落还没有进入金属锻造时期，所以其音乐表现形式主要通过皮革和木材，而其他更先进的部落则用其他不同的音乐表现形式来体现。

Lucas van Tol: 真正有效的平衡方式是我们跟我们的配乐创作人进行了大量的交流。我们尽可能地将信心传达给它们，包括整个部落大纲、通关攻略、美工等等。我在游戏开发的办公大楼里是有一桌之位的，我是亲眼看着这款游戏一步步走到今天的。

不幸的是，这是一名驻外作曲人无法得到的信息。所以作为监制这个角色很大部分时候是要去确保大家能尽可能多地接受到信息，才有一种作为团队一份子的归属感。作曲人越理解这个游戏与其承载的故事，他们就越能演奏出这些故事需要的表达的情感并找到其中的细微差别。而从我的角度看来，我知道我想要的配乐编曲方式与位置，并且我也知道它们该如何进行转换。所以总之，作曲人不需要担心他们的曲子何去何从或者音乐技巧方面的作业，这些我都可以清楚地帮他们整理概括出来，所以他们只需要集中注意力在创作实实在在的音乐就好了。

随着Aloy经历的越多，承担起了更多的使命变得更加繁忙，她承载了一种苦乐参半的主题基调。你们要如何从作曲中反应她的性格？

Joris de Man: 我很幸运，能遇到John Gonazalez（故事主要撰稿人）创作的这样一个绚烂多彩、意义深刻的故事以及故事中这些丰满全面的人物角色。Aloy的内心性格是复杂的，因为她经历了太多不幸；但她那种温柔的力量以及敏感的内心是我在主题曲中想要传达的。

这个主题曲原本是为电子娱乐展会的预告片所创作，所以要想将它勾画展现出来就应该把它推向游戏的高潮……但是Guerrilla工作室很快意识到，把这种情感放在主选单背景乐中营造的效果也很好。我们之前很长一段时间认定它就应该放在主题曲里，而我也理所当然地为主选单背景乐寻找其他音乐素材，但当我们发现人们对它在主选单背景乐中的表现报以喜爱之情以后，我们决定不再继续犯傻试图找别的音乐素材替代它了。

Lucas van Tol：我还记得刚开始我们对Aloy’s的主题曲还不太有把握——因为它太与众不同，太直白坦率了。尽管我们都很喜欢这首曲子，但是“玩家”是不是也喜欢我们不知道。那时的我非常需要在这个方面学习更多，我从中明白了——别去做“玩家喜爱的”东西，因为根本没有这种东西存在；我们只要听从第一感觉便好——你觉得行得通就做下去，这便是Joris秉持的做事原则。

我们所有人最后都爱上了Julie Elven的声音，她的声音似乎成为了Aloy的伴随旋律，就好像每次Aloy在情感上有所经历的时候Julie都在那里支持着她一样。游戏结尾是我最喜欢的部分，我觉得是因为我体验到Joris和Julie所带领的一段美好旅程在那里落下了帷幕，也因为Aloy的主题曲同那一刻的所有其他旋律都那样美好地结束了。

这里的游戏配乐跟你们之前的音乐作品风格存在一些偏差，在这样一个如此独特而广阔的世界里，创作性诠释空间也更加广阔。你们觉得给游戏配乐同你之前的音乐创作有何不同之处？

The Fight：我们很幸运能在如此多样化的项目里创作。在我们开始《地平线：空之黎明》的配乐创作前我们刚为充满黑暗幽闭恐怖气氛的《异形:隔离(Alien:Isolation)》做好配音，但是巧的是两款游戏都是有关女主角独自行走在寻母之路上的故事。

在为《地平线》做配乐的同时我们还为第四频道关于精神障碍儿童的纪录片做着背景音乐。尽管这些都是互不相同的项目，但终究我们所做的都是音乐创作，所以我们一如既往地好好坐下，拿起乐器然后开始弹奏创作。

Joris de Man:《地平线》在很多程度上都是非常大的挑战——我们之前有过和Guerrilla游戏工作室在《杀戮地带》系列游戏上的合作经历，这款游戏的配乐必须符合它的激烈游戏玩法，要成为好似一场大型现场交响乐团所演奏出对听众形成听觉冲击的音乐，而这种旋律和声音的强烈是《地平线》遥不可及的。

《地平线》的配乐方式非常不同，我得让自己尽可能地把《地平线》在差距甚远的节奏和强度上把主题曲和背景音乐写得简单而有效果。而我们少数有限的的独奏者和音效材料也无法再被分解解构来组成大量的音乐内容，这就是我们所面临的挑战。

有时这真的很让人头疼，会让我处在以个非常不舒服的地带，但是我很享受越过这个独特的风景地带的经历，最后到达了大型传统的作曲方式下所无法到达的彼岸。

Lucas van Tol:这是我的第一个作为项目监制的工作——幸运的是我能够得到这个很棒的团队、制作人和Sony的同僚们的鼎力相助。不过我还是有过一些游戏配音经验的——我诶《杀戮地带》2、3和暗影地带都配过乐，所以我对这个流程以及Joris的作品都非常的熟悉。
但是我们在《地平线》中想要一些全新的东西。我对于让Joris不得不踏入一个我们从未接触过的领域后会发生的事非常感兴趣。

确实“出事”了——他不但搞定了游戏风格，还无意中为我们需要的海量音乐内容提供了一个解决方法。他的最初的作品非常丰满有内容。但我很快就意识到，尽管音乐再美，如果一直听，听得多了也会疲惫。

所以我就要取得这些音乐的所有来源，并且开始从这些来源中创造出更多新的音乐内容。我们经常会发现如果选对了音乐来源可以组合成听起来完全不同的曲子。作为额外奖励，我们现在有了能大放异彩或说是小有成效的背景音乐了——突然之间，一切就都那么自然地运转起来了。

… 接着最后.

Joris de Man: 这是一个很好的例子——在音乐的过程中，随着时间的推移，一些音乐逐渐发展起来。

首先是开场曲——我们在第一张唱片盘上有一个叫做Papoose的demo，那也是为开场动画而作的原始demo，它只是脚本中的一小个部分。很明显，一旦场景根据故事情节接连起来并做成动画时，那节奏和氛围完全不同，不过从主题上看来我认为这里有些许音乐内容效果不错。你会在最后的序幕部分的音乐小片段中也听到部分这里的旋律。

其次，我和The Flight组合在一些音乐片段上的合作——我用钢琴弹出的曲子初稿，然后the Flight组合根据它创作个出一首完整的曲子。我觉得能听到我们按照各自不同方式所创作的声音和作品；以及能听出这些声音是如何发挥我们之间不同优势——这是非常有趣的事。

Lucas van Tol:有一点值得注意的趣事就是：我们的作曲家同时也为我们的音乐片段做起了片段捕捉——他们就是Meridian的Joe、Alexis和Niels,就像诺拉节上的牧师和敲鼓三人组一样——我们把音乐集合起来演奏，他们则将捕捉的片段同步进去。

说到Meridan的音乐组合，还有一个与之有关的有趣故事。我们最开始所面对是三种不同的乐器演奏概念。我们对他们最后发出的声音和演奏方式完全没有头绪。所以我们让The Flight用“推销”的方式来让我们去了解——做一个Youtube的小型教学视频来给我们展示这些乐器是如何演奏的。

他们很好地完成了这个任务，视频做的既有娱乐性又有信息呈递性，也是从那时起，我们知道了，我们要面对的是Kuna Bass、Braumdrum和 Iron Pendulum这三种乐器。

The Flight: 当我们一群人去做音乐时我们总觉得音乐是最棒的。在《地平线：零之黎明》中，在和Joris、Niels以及赞爆了的Guerrilla音频团队的合作中，我感觉非常太奇妙了。我们所有人都为能在这个我们觉得是美丽而真正独特的游戏中创作而感到万分骄傲。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most interesting games of 2017, certainly, and possibly of the last few years. So much went in to establishing the world that Aloy and the Nora inhabit that every single conceivable nuance was crafted with meticulous care and attention.

One such area of the game was the game’s music. We asked a few questions to the teams behind the soundscape – composer/production duo The Flight, Ivor Norvello award winning composer Joris de Man and music supervisor at Guerrilla, Lucas van Tol.

What you’re about to read is a real deep dive in to the process of not only scoring a game but also how collaberative teams and studios come to make decisions, how The Flight made YouTube videos to show the motion capture artists how to play the instruments in the game and the story behind Aloy’s Theme. There may be mild spoilers ahead so you have been warned.

How did you identify the three pillars of the game to represent musically – machines, tribes, and nature?

The Flight: It wasn’t so much a matter of us identifying the three pillars of the game; these were explained to us by Guerilla on day one. It was ours and Joris’ job to translate these into the musical sound of the game. We focused on the nature of the world first, a beautiful place full of colour and space, you can hear this in a lot of the exploration music.

The machines are the dark side and most contact with them is when you are fighting, so we needed this music to have a hi-tech, metallic edge. The tribes were humans, some of them quite primitive and naive, some more advanced. We tried to make their music reflect their level of advancement at the same time as keeping it all quite organic sounding.

The juxtaposition of the lush world, hi-tech machines and primitive people is what made this game such an exciting prospect.

Joris de Man: This was one of the challenges the composing team faced, and that we spent a fair bit of time figuring out, both musically and sonically.

The machine world was the easiest: cold, mechanical textures using circuit bent synths, glitching and stretching, and metallic overtones that were achieved running percussive loops through impulse responses of iron and metal objects being struck.

With the tribes, the first thing we thought of is how tribal people would play music – it’s likely that the first things they would do is hit stuff, blow on it or use their voice, so those are ideas we explored. But it was also clear that as this world features never-before-seen tribes after humankind is more or less ‘restarted’, that we couldn’t approach instruments in a traditional way.

Guerrilla made clear we should steer away from any music or style of playing that would pull it towards any particular ethnicity, so instead we looked at playing instruments in different ways – cellos with plectrums and the back of the bow, bowed guitars and piano strings, that sort of thing.

Soundwise, Lucas van Tol (music supervisor) also suggested we’d go for a much smaller and more intimate sound, and a bit less polished, as opposed to the big blockbuster sound that some games go for, with focus on solo Instruments and ‘found sound’, rather than bigger ensembles.

Last but not least, I knew Guerrilla wasn’t overly keen on flutes, especially high ones (as far back as the first few Killzones I’d always have to turn the flutes and piccolos down in my demos!), so instead I looked for the lowest flute I could find; a Contrabass Flute. Even though it’s a metallic instrument, it sounds quite tribal and has this wonderfully deep and raspy tone that breaks up in a really interesting way when overblown. So those elements took care of the tribes’ pillar.

Nature was arguably the easiest – distant pads and ambiences, and wide, spread out chords seemed to work well. I also created a pad sound by sampling myself blowing really softly on a Thai bamboo flute, so that it barely created a pitch, but with lots of air. That was put into Kontakt and Omnisphere so that it could be played as a pad sound and in the latter, granulated to create more textures.

Lucas van Tol: Long before we approached Joris and The Flight, a short document was put together. Sort of a recipe list of things that Mathijs de Jonge, our game director, and the sound team wanted to focus on. Part of that list were those three pillars. We quite literally translated that to robots -> electronic, tribes -> rough, unpolished sounding music with simple instruments and nature -> organic, lush sounding elements. What that meant exactely, was what we wanted the composers to find out through a music test. Joris and The Flight came up with solutions that seemed to ‘click’.

Once you found these inspirations, how did this dictate what instruments to use in the score, and at what points?

The Flight: We talked in detail to Lucas at Guerrilla, who already had strong ideas about instrumentation and feel. We discussed Aloy, the world she lives in and the story path that she follows. As the world was split into zones for each of the tribes, we thought about what instruments may be found in each of them in order to give each one its own aural stamp.

We tried to use existing instruments in different ways, almost imagining how they would have been played by people just rediscovering them. One of our key sounds were bowed resonator guitars layered up with different sizes of harmonicas. We called this our ‘Horizon orchestra’!

Joris de Man: The palette on my music settled on analog synths, cello, contrabass flute, found sound and Circle Percussion, who Niels van der Leest (diegetic composer) had introduced to us. The final piece of the puzzle was Julie Elven, who, after the first E3 trailer’s music, received such an amazing response, became more or less the musical voice of Aloy.

So for the cutscenes, if the scenes signaled an emotional turn for Aloy, her voice and permutations of Aloy’s Theme (as heard on the main menu) seemed like a good choice.

Anything action-based benefited from Circle Percussion, as that would give you an instant aggressive and tribal sound, and if the development of the story focused on the machine world or technology of ‘the old ones’ (the previous civilisation), circuit bend or glitched analog synths were used.

Lucas van Tol: In the early stages of Horizon’s development, I asked Niels van der Leest, someone I had met a couple of months earlier and a professional perccusionist and game composer, to put together a presentation about tribal instruments. We knew where our game would be set approximately, and we had a bit of information about our tribes. By combining that information, you could thus extract what kind of materials tribes would have to their disposal and how they would play that.

For instance, the Nora have very basic musical knowledge, so their music had to be relatively simple. The Carja were much more sophisticated so we could put entire choir pieces there, for instance. By using Circle Percussion, a Dutch epic drums theatre group, we could combine all kinds of drumming sounds in our diegetic music as well as in our soundtrack – and all composers could ‘use’ Niels, who used to be part of Circle Percussion, to record live percussion tracks.

The score at times feels like it’s referencing the in-game past and a measure of sorrow, whilst also keeping a harder, more action filled pace. How did you balance this?

Joris de Man: Part of this was handled in the cutscenes, where there was much more room for thematic development. The past, the meaning of Horizon Zero Dawn and Aloy’s backstory is a vital part of the storyline, so there was plenty of scope to explore that musically and I really enjoyed writing thematic material for that, with motifs I could reuse in different situations.

But the balance between action and more ambient scoring during the game was also largely dictated by the various regions and the type of encounters.

Lucas did an excellent job describing the various regions to us, the tribes that inhabited them and how they differed. Some tribes had not yet gotten into metal forging, and so focused on leather and wood, whereas others were more advanced, so the music needed to reflect that.

Lucas van Tol: What worked really well is that we talked a lot with all our composers. We sent over as much information as we could. Entire tribe guides, playthroughs, artwork… I have a desk in the building where the game is actually developed. I see the game slowly coming together.

That is information that an external composer unfortunately doesn’t have. So a big part of the supervision role is to make sure they get as much information as possible. To feel as much as a part of our team as we can. The more the composers understand the game and the story, the more easily they can play with that and find the nuances in that. And from my side, I knew how and where I wanted to script the music in and how its transitions should work. So in the end, the composers didn’t have to worry about where the music should go or how it should work technically, I was able to brief them on that quite clearly so that they could focus on writing the actual music.

The Flight: The main thing for us was keeping a sense of loneliness. Aloy is alone on a quest to discover her mother and her origins. She has so much she doesn’t understand, and much hardships along the way. This game is not just a story game though, there is a lot of action too, and thus a lot of more uptempo music. The balance between the two wasn’t really our remit – it is down to the arc of the story and the game designers. We just needed to make sure that the two sides worked together to create a coherent sonic experience.

Aloy’s theme has a bittersweet tone with a progressively busier and busier crescendo. How did you approach composing for her character?

Joris de Man: I was lucky that John Gonzalez, the lead writer, created such a wonderfully rich and deep story, with well-rounded characters. Aloy is a complex character, who meets much adversity throughout her story arc; but she has this gentle strength and sensitivity that I wanted to portray in the theme.

The main theme was originally created for the first E3 trailer, and so to work to picture it needed to build to a crescendo…but Guerrilla soon realised that it would work well as a main menu theme also. For the longest time it was considered placeholder, with me potentially writing something else for the main menu, but seeing how people responded to it and how well it set the tone, it would have been foolish to try and replace it.

Lucas van Tol: I remember that initially we were a little bit unsure about Aloy’s Theme. It was so different, and so outspoken. We loved it, but would ‘the players’ like it as well? That was a big learning moment for me. Don’t make anything for ‘the players’, there is no such thing. Make something that intuitively you think works, and that is what Joris did.

We all fell in love with Julie Elven’s voice, and it sort of transitioned into the idea that Julie would become Aloy’s musical voice. Any time something emotional happens to Aloy, Julie will be there to support her. The epilogue track is one of my favorites, and I really think it is because Joris and Julie have taken you on a journey that concludes there. It’s because of Aloy’s Theme and all those other pieces that that moment lands so well.

This score sees a bit of a departure from your previous works in being such a unique and vast world that’s a lot more open to creative interpretation. How do you feel this has differed from your previous work in approaching scoring the game?

The Flight: We are lucky to have worked on such varied projects. Before we started Horizon Zero Dawn we had just completed the score for Alien: Isolation, which is dark, claustrophobic and pretty terrifying, but also coincidentally a story about a lone woman searching for her mother.

Whilst working on Horizon Zero Dawn we also scored a Channel 4 documentary series about children with mental health disorders. Though these are all very different projects, in the end we are just writing music, we still usually sit down, pick up an instrument and start playing.

Joris de Man:Horizon Zero Dawn was hugely challenging on many levels – having had history with Guerrilla Games on the Killzone franchise, where the music had to match the intense gameplay and was an aural assault on the listener with a massive live symphony orchestra, Horizon Zero Dawn couldn’t have been further away from that type of scoring and sound.

It required a very different approach, and I had to allow myself to write simple, effective themes and background music that had a very different pace and intensity. The palette too, couldn’t be further apart, with just a few soloists and found sounds, so the challenge was to do a lot with relatively little, and allow the music to breathe without needing to take centre stage.

At times it was quite challenging and a bit outside of my comfort zone, but I relished the opportunity of sonically traversing this unique landscape, and ended up in places I wouldn’t have had if we’d taken a more traditional, blockbuster-style approach.

Lucas van Tol: This was my first project supervising the music – luckily I had a lot of help from the sound team and our producers, and people within Sony. However, I did integrate the music for Killzone 2, 3 and Shadow Fall, so I was pretty familiar with the process and Joris his work.

But we wanted something completely new here. I was interested in seeing what would happen if we would force Joris to go into a direction he had never been in, at least not for Guerrilla, to see what would happen.

A couple of things happened. He nailed the style, but he also accidently provided a solution for the huge amount of music content we wanted to have. His initial pieces were very rich, very full. I soon realized that although it was beautiful, it would be too much to hear all the time.

So instead I asked for all the stems of the songs, and we started to create more content out of these stems. Often we would find entirely different sounding songs by choosing the right stems. As a bonus, we now had a musical soundscape that could take the spotlight or kind of linger somewhere in the background. There suddenly was a natural flow that worked really well.

… And Finally.

Joris de Man: There’s a nice example on the soundtrack of how, during the course of the game, some of the music developed over time.

The first is the Prologue – there’s a demo on the first disc called Papoose that was the original demo for the opening cutscene, composed to just a section from the script. It became clear, once the scene was storyboarded and put into an early animatic, that the pace and vibe was quite different, but thematically there were a few bits in there I thought worked well. You’ll hear some of those bits (like the main flute melody) back in little snippets in the final Prologue piece.

Secondly, The Flight and I collaborated on a few pieces, which started as a piano sketch from myself that the Flight worked into a full production. I thought it was really interesting to hear our different approaches to sound and production and how it played to our different strengths.

Lucas van Tol: A fun thing to note is that our composers also did the motion capture for our diegetic music vignettes. The three musicians in Meridian are Joe, Alexis and Niels, as are the priests and the drumming trio at the Nora festival. We played the music on set and they synced their mocap to it.

Talking about the music group in Meridan, there’s also a fun story about that. We originally were confronted with three concept art pieces of instruments. We had no idea what they would sound like or how they would be played. So we approached The Flight with the question if they could ‘sell’ those instruments to us, to make a little Youtube tutorial video to show us what these instruments were about.

They did an excellent job, the video was both entertaining and informing, and from that point on we knew we were dealing with a Kuna Bass, a Braumdrum and an Iron Pendulum.（source：develop online ）