Hi everyone! With the release of the Death Stranding OST Vol.2 I wanted to make a thread where I shine at least a small light into all the cues on this release. (LOOONG THREAD)
#KojimaProductions #DeathStranding #DeathStrandingDC @KojiPro2015_EN @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN Image
Vol.2 is a compilation of both the new music from the Director’s Cut (DC) and unreleased music from the original game, well actually it should literally be ALL the unreleased stuff. Check it out:
soundtracks.lnk.to/DeathStranding…
01. Highways
A lot of people have been asking for this track to be released. It was originally written as one of my “sketches” trying to find the sound for DS but it didn’t really get to be fully featured until now.
open.spotify.com/track/4u9Sl80E…
02. Car Go Fast
Writing music for the race track of the Director’s Cut was one of the most fun experiences working on this game. I got to really dive into just coming up with stuff that I myself, at the very least, think fucking slaps.
open.spotify.com/track/3d17G5L0…
03. Truckin’
Another track that was a leftover “sketch” that I finally got to fully flesh out during the making of the Director’s Cut. The title is a nod to one certain streamer who did a whole lot of truckin’ during their DS LP.
open.spotify.com/track/2OL55aoH…
04. Over the Threshold
Like a lot of the race tracks, this one too was based on an idea I had early during production. The vocals during the somewhat calmer short bit just past halfway through is a shameless homage to @kevinpenkin’s Hanezeve Caradhina.
open.spotify.com/track/1GX9lYxa…
05. UCA Pacific Highway 46
For some reason, I wanted to make sure that I at least had one track for the race track that featured the “DS Theme motif” so I wrote this one. DRIVE CAR. That’s all.
open.spotify.com/track/2jzcxtIp…
06. Pizza Time (1/3)
I always wanted to add bespoke music to the Pizza Delivery missions due to their nature in DS but for reasons never got to before the DC.
open.spotify.com/track/2DcmER2N…
06. Pizza Time (2/3)
In the game, the music is implemented so that not only does the music build from mission to mission but we added parameters so the music will progress depending on...
06. Pizza Time (3/3)
...the distance to the goal AND most importantly we made the music play more “melodic” parts when the player does less intensive traversal such as cruising on a road or using zip-lines to give a sense of “just enjoying the ride”. Pizza Time has secret lyrics.
07. The Big Sneak
Anything I can say about this track y’all are probably already guessing, aren’t you? Lemme know... Either way... um... enjoy!
open.spotify.com/track/0fXwifgz…
08. Dredge (1/2)
Additional BT music added for the DC.
All basic BT music in DS will build in tension adding rhythmical parts and add/subtract elements depending on BT AI and distance.
open.spotify.com/track/25dDbXp4…
08. Dredge (2/2)
It’s a complicated system with many samples being triggered irrelevant to their timing in the original composition. The goal was to have music that would never sound the same, that would be more or less procedural to keep the scary moments exciting and surprising
09. Scourge
New Big BT (Catcher) fight music.
This is actually the track from this tweet:
Cleaned up quite well I think! Love the end of this one.
open.spotify.com/track/2uhGO0vd…
10.Gazer
Previously unreleased BT music. One of the first tracks I wrote after the sampling session me and @joelcorelitz did at the Playstation offices in San Mateo. Thus I tried using as much of those sounds as possible, soo much layering going on here...
open.spotify.com/track/3vvD4M5y…
11.Catcher
Previously unreleased BT (Catcher) music.
The Catcher music doesn’t actually do a whole lot in terms of being adaptive to gameplay. We simply focused on keeping the tension UP and making sure we went in and out of them smoothly.
open.spotify.com/track/4OiTsxhi…
12.Whale (1/3)
Whale BT boss music.
This might be one of the most experimental cues written for DS; I wanted something “floaty” to sort of reflect the gracefulness of the whale but I also wanted it to be nasty af.
open.spotify.com/track/772jTdn9…
12.Whale (2/3)
So I tried mixing a bunch of weird sound design with more or less “classic approach” to the orchestra and choir mixed with quite a bit of focus on soloists.
12.Whale (3/3)
Implementation-wise this one was a tough one, but we managed to find a way to separate the more melodic passages and have them play up when the whale is floating overhead and have different parts play for when it’s submerged
13. Tryouts (1/2)
The Shooting Range time attack music needed to be slightly different from the majority of the music of DS due to its less bleak nature so I wrote something that I think feels a bit more “mainstream” but still like DS.
open.spotify.com/track/1jQ6hRMm…
13. Tryouts (2/2)
In-game the music will build in tension depending on how close you are to finishing your challenge or if time is running out.
14. Factory (1/2)
New Mule/Terrorist action music.
Overall the humanoid enemies in DS have their own sort of sound; it’s less dreary and more focused on rhythm and a sense of “action”. In a way I feel like there’s also some sort of “tribal” essence to it.
open.spotify.com/track/3HKDtmxg…
14. Factory (2/2)
I wanted the interactions with the Mules to feel more “fun” and have more momentum to them, and it can’t hurt if you feel somewhat cool kicking their asses, right?
15. Vane
One of the first cues I started on for DS.
The ambient nature of the cue is meant to paint an empty but beautiful world, in harmony. The faint melody then gives you a sense of the life in this seemingly lifeless place.
open.spotify.com/track/6D2VNPGR…
16.Haven
It really pains me that this cue never found a place to fully play out in the game because it’s one of my favorites. As is it’s probably just a bit too melodic for most situations we ended up finding ourselves in in the end.
open.spotify.com/track/1okbH6XX…
17. Touch
Another of the cues I wrote trying to find what the world of Death Stranding is. I hope it invokes visions of the sprawling plains, the rivers and mystical space of that world. The base of this entire cue was written in one take just improvising.
open.spotify.com/track/1ED3kXxA…
18.Stars
Stars is meant to reflect the sense and serenity of walking under a clear night sky, returning home after a long journey, reminiscing over what has transpired while staring at the light at the end of the tunnel, growing until you’re finally home.
open.spotify.com/track/39Mw15iB…
19.Calling
Calling lies somewhere in between the world of the living and the dead, which is why I guess it ended up working so well for resting-music.
For a long time, it was the placeholder audio for the loadscreen.
open.spotify.com/track/525rnzJ5…
20.Strata
This is one of the few more ambient cues that I wrote for cutscenes that ended up making this OST. Plays during one of your encounters with Heartman. Also, yes, there’s a quick a nod to the “Mio in the Land of Faraway” theme song in there.
open.spotify.com/track/2EyesZBi…
21.Bending to the Wind
This is one of the first cues written once I figured out how I wanted to feature strings into the score. I wanted the sound of the strings to represent the image of wheat/tall grass bending to the wind.
open.spotify.com/track/1ymnt0SW…
22.The Strands of Time
This cue was written envisioning Sam standing on the Elder’s mountain, looking out of the landscape, seeing the strands reaching down from the sky in the distance, reflecting the upcoming journey.
open.spotify.com/track/6FAuHyde…
23.Craters
Craters was probably the 2nd or 3rd sketch of a cue I started working on before there really was a game to look at. In my head I was standing at the edge of a huge crater reflecting the immense power it represents.
open.spotify.com/track/2Qg0qmXA…
24.Shelter
I wanted to retell the prologue of DS since those cues had yet to be released.
So many concepts had to be presented in this scene story-wise and the same goes for audio/music letting you know what sounds to listen for.
open.spotify.com/track/55vVTXOr…
25.A Cryptobiote a Day...
I wanted a clear contrast in the music for this scene compared to the previous and also wanted to present Fragile’s character with this soft sound and theme.
open.spotify.com/track/4OHXCfaa…
26.Corpse Disposal
For this first scene with Igor I wanted to reinstate the stakes of the world and my approach was this very thick guttural ambient pad that’s sort of supposed to give you the idea a ghostly invisible threat oozing out of the body bag.
open.spotify.com/track/1FkHOB3D…
27.Voidout
Music from DS’s 3rd trailer.
I used the opportunity of writing music for that trailer as proof of concept as to my approach to scoring the BTs for the game. This was literally the base for all the synth-based horror-esque music for all of DS.
open.spotify.com/track/2zM3pemP…
28.Beach
Also partly featured in “Highways”, this is Sam waking up on the Beach (as seen in the first trailer). Though not audible here, I love how the synths in the latter part interact with Amelie singing “London Bridge is Falling Down”.
open.spotify.com/track/4gkkvn5M…
29.The Seam
The music in the Seam is supposed to instill a sense of floating. The music changes depending on your distance to Sam’s body, and we also tied a clicking sound and its speed to the camera, speeding up and down etc. when you look around.
open.spotify.com/track/2cQzopRS…
30.Symbol
Tasked with carrying Bridget to the incinerator Sam, Die-Hardman and Deadman gather around the president’s body. While it’s an important goodbye, Sam still reluctant taking on the task.
open.spotify.com/track/1rFrC1jG…
31.Particle of God (1/2)
This scene introduces Higgs, the mysterious masked villain of DS.
It was my idea to use human voices, but aleatoric ones to put Higgs somewhere in between the living humans and the dead humans (BTs).
open.spotify.com/track/69BsxQ6y…
31.Particle of God (2/2)
All the lyrics are English using keywords or phrases pertaining to Higgs’ character translated into latin.
I was also quite smitten by the score to Mandy (2018) while writing this cue.
32.Left Behind
This cue wasn’t originally written for the Chiral Artist but while working on her cutscenes I noticed that the fragility of the tune fit really well with her character so I reworked it a bit to become her theme.
open.spotify.com/track/6MyJzuHL…
33.Mama
The main idea to Mama's theme was to have something constantly climbing upwards while never actually going anywhere, like a melodic shepard’s tone representing Mama’s state in this world.
open.spotify.com/track/5GHv9zxz…
34.Dead Man
Though not really getting much time to play, this is actually Deadman’s theme (most apparent from around 01:34). I felt the melody’s somewhat traditional approach reminded me of “older cinema” and Frankenstein’s Monster-vibe to it somehow.
open.spotify.com/track/3hAQv6TB…
35.The Extinction Entity (1/2)
This cue plays right before the scene where “Strands” from the original OST plays. Simply because they’re somewhat similar I opted to leave this cue for vol.2.
open.spotify.com/track/3pgWD700…
35.The Extinction Entity (2/2)
Listening to the two cues after each other you can notice how Bridget and Amelie’s themes start intertwining... (note that both cues have music from other scenes tacked on at the end of them)
36.Scar
This is what we ended up going with for this scene at the very end of the story but the cue originated from the cue “Sacrifice”. We needed the situation to be more toned down and humble.
open.spotify.com/track/7H42MtYC…
37.WWII
It was hard to have literally any music play during the WWII sequence because there was so much else going on but I wanted at least an ambient bed to add to the “unrealness” of the situation so it would still slightly feel like a dream.
open.spotify.com/track/4rhO29uX…
38.Trenches (1/2)
Music for encounters with Cliff. These encounters are quite dynamic, going from stealth to caution to action and back etc. so they needed quite a bit of layering playing around with implementation.
open.spotify.com/track/4pRzFMD8…
38.Trenches (2/2)
Note that throughout the game, in these encounters the music will gradually become more melodic and epic but they’re all based on the same cue. Also, the choir’s lyrics are an Easter egg I’m not giving away.
39.Vietnam
As with WWII, there really wasn’t much space to fit music into the soundscape so my approach was to make something closer to sound design that would aid the sense of emergency in the gameplay with siren-like wails and thumping rhythms.
open.spotify.com/track/14NoKPxD…
40.Sewers
It’s really too bad that a lot of players don’t take their time to soak in the atmosphere we created for the sewer sequence. We spent quite a bit of time to change the mood so that one would move slowly and maybe even get a scare here or there.
open.spotify.com/track/37RljWQf…
41.Tarbelt
One of the few parts of DS where you’re pretty much supposed to just keep running. I actually wanted to make music that’d make this sequence feel like a platformer, which is why I added more melody than in a lot of other cues.
open.spotify.com/track/2gTmBRZG…
42.Trecking
I wanted to release this cue especially because the latter half never really got to be part of the game. I just like it a lot so, enjoy! I guess!
open.spotify.com/track/3iZNdVeW…
43.Unfortunate Coincidents
A cue I actually spent quite a bit of time on but very few might’ve heard! This music plays during a very unusual state: when the player manages to get BTs and Mules all fighting each other (well the Mules can’t really do much).
open.spotify.com/track/1xTyTZS8…
44.Tar People
More unreleased BT music. Pretty happy with how this represents the idea of something musical/unmusical which was a huge concept for me going into the score; to create something that didn’t make sense but at the same time did.
open.spotify.com/track/7vz2fb3J…
45.Fanatics
Unreleased Terrorist music. This was the first cue I wrote for the Terrorists. I wanted it to be similar to the Mule music but slightly elevate the stakes since these guys have guns yo.
open.spotify.com/track/6hhLWeJb…
46.Nuke
I wrote this as a long crescendo which we edited so we could still use the same cue in the case the you run into Mules or BTs. There’s a bunch of systems to handle all that and also to build the cue as you get closer to the goal/time runs out.
open.spotify.com/track/31wpfWvp…
47.Stutter
So this is literally a cue I wrote randomly expecting there to be situations where this type of mood would be useful. In the end we used it for a bunch of stuff, you probably wouldn’t notice!
open.spotify.com/track/4rfeztL0…
48. Black Out
This cue was also written quite randomly and then reworked to be implemented into a bunch of cutscenes towards the end of the game. I'm not sure we ever used the mid section much but the synth arpeggio can be heard in a bunch of spots.
open.spotify.com/track/3nXU08Jh…
49.Trickster
Another cue in the Deadman-family of cues. This was also cut up and used in quite a few places. I personally prefer to listen to it in this original state.
open.spotify.com/track/37QUZe7J…
50.Sacrifice
This is the original version of “Scar”. A version of this was actually played in the actor’s headphones while we filmed the, that's how I knew that some version of this would work. Only cue on the whole score that features pizzicato lol
open.spotify.com/track/5PUvXaRE…
51.The Drop
Music I wrote for the first DS tv-spot prior to release. The spot was quite different in tone to what we’d done at KJP up until that point so I made the music a bit more “mainstream”, as you might notice.
open.spotify.com/track/6vIL1KWp…
52.Trailer
Probably the most asked for track on here... a compilation of all the “hype music” I wrote for DS trailers that was never actually released. You’re welcome.
open.spotify.com/track/4hu0BbSE…
53. BB’s Theme (Instrumental)
This one, of course, goes without saying: it’s BB’s Theme Instrumental! This is basically a fan-service karaoke track for anyone who wants to cover this song. Have fun!
open.spotify.com/track/7cjEgVlm…
WHOOOSH! That's all of it. Wish I had more episodes on some of them and wish I had more characters to use for a lot of them. Please feel free to ask questions on the individual tracks and I'll try to give more insight!

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