Soundtrack, The - Volume 11, Issue 1-2, 2019

This article investigates the usage of music and sound in the 2015 video game Bloodborne, exploring how the game’s aesthetics of difficulty and maximalism exert a disruptive influence for a struggling player. In particular, it focuses on how the soundtrack attenuates the series of escalating monster boss battles around which the game is structured. Combining ‘Gothic’ and ‘Weird’ horror tropes with the techniques of musical modernism, these composite ‘musical monsters’ gesture, disturbingly, towards new kinds of monstrous materialities that challenge a simple distinction between sound and image.

This article aims to specify the role of spectator sounds in football simulation video games as exemplified by FIFA 19: what are the structures and functions of spectator sounds and how are these sounds related to the visuals of the video game and the player’s actions and potential experience of disruption? Although the examination generally adds to the understanding of a prevalent and purportedly significant yet hitherto rather underexplored type of video game sound, the examination also motivates a modification of certain positions within previous research that has routinely highlighted the non-obtrusive role of video game sounds. Specifically, the article shows how the disruptive potential of the spectator sounds is attributional both to what they sound like, why they occur and how and from what perspective the player is called upon to listen to them.

The Assassin’s Creed video game series incorporates real-world historical elements. While some historically derived musical elements are referenced from the time period and geographic setting of the game, in the first game of the series, Assassin’s Creed 1 (2007), these historical snippets are subsumed within a modern musical setting emphasizing digital sound. The effect is a bleeding-over of ancient with modern that mirrors the plot of the game. This new spin on the time travel narrative creates a disconnect for the player and invokes disruption in a number of ways: through plots, visual distortions and sound/music effects. Musically, disruptions invoke a sense of aural discomfort in the player, which mimics aspects of the game narrative such as the protagonist’s physical distress. In order to better understand the interrelationship between these components, this article uses graphic transcriptions to categorize the musical, visual and narrative functions into fiction, interface and hypervisual/hypersonic components.

The voice as disruption is not a new concept. Disruptions to discourses, relationships and lifestyles can be caused by the insertion of the voice. In video games, voices can be disruptive to player progressions, gameplay and character relationships through dialogue and performances. The female entertainer frequently disrupts the aural space of a game through her uniqueness as a performer at the forefront of the diegetic space, using song to tell her own story. The video games The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), Transistor (2014) and Divinity Original Sin II (2017) use diegetic female entertainer voices to disrupt the video game’s continuity. These case studies consider performance as disruption to gameplay, which is significant for the growth of the story and its characters, alongside the player’s understanding of the game’s musical meanings.

Small Radios Big Televisions (2016) guides the player through a series of abandoned modern factories to locate objects and solve puzzles, including cassette tapes that transport them to virtual locations. Each tape presents a diorama-like environment, ranging from natural environments, including forests and beaches. Throughout Small Radios Big Televisions players must warp and electronically distort music and sounds, magnetizing tapes. These musical disruptions of the tape tracks are a core game mechanic. This article draws on autoethnographic gameplay, material and spatial analysis to investigate how players explore abandoned worlds stored on glitchy analogue cassettes full of visual and sonic noise.