Koji Kondo
- 1985 Super Mario Bros.
- 1986 The Legend of Zelda
- 1988 Super Mario Bros. 3
An editorial guide to game music
From square waves to standing ovations
How video game music grew from a few beeps on a circuit board into scores played by full orchestras in British concert halls: the eras, the composers, the craft and where to hear it live.
Tonight’s programme
Four ways into the music
Read it like a concert programme: start anywhere. Every page lists the sources it was checked against and the date it was last checked.
The timeline scroll sideways
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1972–1982Arcade beeps
The first video game sounds were not composed in any usual sense. Engineers coaxed tones out of circuits that already existed, then soldered in new ones. Within a decade those blips had become rhythm, tension and, finally, a tune that played all the way through a game.
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1982–1990The 8-bit era
In the 1980s, home consoles and computers brought game music into living rooms. With only three to five channels to work with, composers in Japan and the UK wrote themes that are still hummed, recorded and performed by orchestras today.
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1987–1996The 16-bit era
The 16-bit machines gave composers two very different toolkits. Sega's Mega Drive leaned on FM synthesis; Nintendo's Super NES and the Commodore Amiga played back recorded samples. The rivalry produced some of the most distinctive scores in the medium.
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1988–2000CD audio and the 90s
The compact disc changed what a game soundtrack could be. Instead of instructions for a chip, a disc could carry finished recordings at the same quality as an album. Composers could use real studios, real players and, increasingly, licensed music from bands.
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1999–2012The orchestral turn
Around the turn of the millennium, larger storage and larger budgets let game composers work the way film composers did: with live orchestras, choirs and recording studios. Within a decade, a piece written for a game had won a Grammy.
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2008–presentIndie and digital
From the late 2000s, affordable software and digital stores let tiny teams make games, and their composers sell soundtracks directly to fans. Some of the most-played game music of recent years was recorded in bedrooms and closets.
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1991–presentAdaptive and modern
A film score is fixed; a game score has to cope with a player who might do anything. Adaptive music systems, first built in the early 1990s and now standard middleware, let scores change in real time.
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1987–presentThe concert hall
Game music began leaving the console almost as soon as it had melodies. Since the first symphonic concert in Tokyo in 1987, it has filled concert halls, reached classical radio and, in 2022, the BBC Proms.
Interactive sound on
Layer Mixer
Many game scores are built in layers that play in sync, with the game turning layers up or down as the situation changes. This little loop works the same way. Pick a state and listen to the mix shift underneath you.
An original loop written for this site and generated live in your browser from oscillators and noise. No recordings, nothing borrowed from any game. Nothing plays until you press a button; start with your volume low.
Padoff
Bassoff
Arpoff
Drumsoff
Silent. Press Play or choose a state to start.
The writers
Composers, coloured by era
Each card carries the colour of the era the composer is most closely linked with on our timeline, so you can see at a glance who came up in the 8-bit years and who arrived with the indie wave.
The 8-bit era The 16-bit era Nobuo Uematsu
- 1987 Final Fantasy
- 1994 Final Fantasy VI
- 1995 Chrono Trigger (with Yasunori Mitsuda)
The 16-bit era Yoko Shimomura
- 1991 Street Fighter II
- 1996 Super Mario RPG
- 1999 Legend of Mana
CD audio and the 90s Grant Kirkhope
- 1997 GoldenEye 007 (with others)
- 1998 Banjo-Kazooie
- 1999 Donkey Kong 64
The 16-bit era David Wise
- 1987 Wizards & Warriors
- 1991 Battletoads
- 1994 Donkey Kong Country (with Robin Beanland and Eveline Fischer)
Indie and digital Jessica Curry
- 2012 Dear Esther
- 2013 Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
- 2015 Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Indie and digital Austin Wintory
- 2006 flOw
- 2012 Journey
- 2014 The Banner Saga
Indie and digital Darren Korb
- 2011 Bastion
- 2014 Transistor
- 2017 Pyre
The craft
How game music works
Plain-English explainers on the technology and technique behind the scores: what a sound chip could do, how music reacts to play and why a theme can follow a character for decades.
- No. 1
Sound chips and chiptune: how early consoles made music
Before games could play recorded music, every note was generated live by a small chip inside the machine. Each chip had a fixed number of voices and a limited set of sounds, and composers learned to make a great deal out of very little. This guide explains how the best-known chips worked, channel by channel, and how those sounds became a musical style of their own.
- No. 2
Adaptive music: how game scores react to what you do
A film score is written to a finished edit: the composer knows exactly when each scene starts and ends. A game composer does not, because the player decides when to explore, fight or flee. Adaptive music is the set of techniques that lets a score change with play. This guide explains the main methods, where they came from and the tools used to build them.
- No. 3
Leitmotifs in games: themes that follow characters and ideas
A leitmotif is a short musical idea tied to a character, place or idea, which returns and changes as a story unfolds. The technique comes from 19th-century opera, travelled through film scoring and is now one of the main tools game composers use to make long, branching stories feel connected.
- No. 4
Recording a game score: from the first brief to the final stems
Large game scores are often recorded by orchestras and choirs, but the process differs from film in important ways. The music has to be delivered in pieces the game can combine, often long before the game is finished. This guide walks through the typical stages, from the first brief to the files that go into the game.
- No. 5
Sound design versus music: who makes which sounds in a game
Everything you hear in a game is either music, sound effects, ambience or voice, and the line between them is not always clear. This guide explains what sound design and music each do, who usually makes them, and why the best game audio treats them as one connected job.
- No. 6
How to get into game music: practical first steps in the UK
There is no single route into writing music for games. Some composers trained at conservatoires, others taught themselves, and many started by working with friends on small projects. This guide sets out the practical skills, tools and organisations that matter for UK readers, along with an honest picture of what the work involves.
Live in the UK
Video game music concerts in the UK
Game music is now a regular part of UK concert life, from the Royal Albert Hall to community orchestras. Below are recurring series and recent or announced dates we confirmed on organisers' own pages, plus practical advice on finding and choosing a concert. Dates change, so always check the organiser before you travel.
See concert series