Music’s impact in games is nothing new, from the chip tunes of early Mario games through to the soaring epic theme tune for Skyrim and the poignant musical motifs of The Last of Us, to name but a few. But while popular media and services like Spotify have brought game soundtracks and their composers into the limelight, BAFTA (the British Academy of Film & TV) has been surprisingly forward-thinking and has acknowledged and celebrated game music as far back as 2006; arguably a time when gaming wasn’t as mainstream and ubiquitous as it now is.
While music will always provoke some form of response in games, it can sometimes be superseded by a poignant story, brutal action, deep systems, or vast open worlds. Yet it’s arguably just as important an element in adding color and emotion to some of the biggest games of all time, and those of a smaller scale but no less significant.
A first for BAFTA’s 20 years of celebrating games, this event saw a 65-piece orchestra perform music from games that were nominees and winners of the music award. Above the orchestra, a large display showed off perfectly synced game footage, cutscene and custom videos to accompany the performance.
A performance of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture hammers home the haunting theme of the game, and just how much music shaped it. A performance of the Helldivers 2’s theme elicited a ‘lets go’ from a fan who’d clearly spend a lot of time in the hit squad-based shooter, while a rendition Ori and the Will of the Wisps was wonderfully poignant, especially coupled with the on-screen visuals from the Metroidvania game; it reminded me I need to play it once I’ve pulled myself through Hollow Knight Silksong.
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A mix of Baldur’s Gate 3’s music was performed in a perfect blend, coupled with a dizzying variety of visuals that captured the huge scope of the seminal RPG.
That alone was fantastic, but hearing the main theme played live by a full orchestra opened up details in the music that I’d missed before, most notably how there are motifs in it that I feel hark back to the main theme of the preceding two Baldur’s Gate games despite the decades between them and Larian’s 2023 masterpiece.
A soaring performance of ‘Raphael’s Final Act’ was brilliant and felt like the performance had momentarily jumped into the realms of a musical.
Another medley from Disco Elysium mildly blew me away. While the melancholic theme of ‘Instrument of Surrender’ seemed an easy fit for an orchestra, the move to what, to my ears, is the lounge music-esque ‘Whirling-in-Rags’ felt like it would be harder to render, but it sounded fantastic with the force of an orchestra.
A smile was already creeping across my face at the above, but I fully beamed when the orchestra moved into a rendition of ‘Ecstatic Vibrations, Totally Transcendent’. Taking a thumping electronic sound created by British band Sea Power and performing it via an orchestra gave a track that you only hear in one specific part of the game – at least in my early stage of playing it – a lot more impact.
All this was accompanied by footage from the game that was cut to perfectly match the music; not unexpected, but to make it engaging in a game that uses an isometric perspective and a somewhat sedate pace, was very impressive.
While I knew it was coming, it was the performance of the music from 2012’s PS3 indie game Journey that hit me in the emotions.
Music is dynamically tied to the player’s actions and stems from one central theme, all designed to represent the player’s journey through the game’s world. It was something very special at the time, but hearing the music played live gave it even more emotional weight – and I’m saying this as someone who’s not awash with emotions.
Nostalgia hit hard here, but the performance really helped to remind me how games can provide such unique and evocative experiences that merge art, music, cinematography, storytelling, and one’s own agency into a medium that not too long ago could be unfairly dismissed as something for children and ‘geeks’.
So yes, the BAFTA Games in Concert was a rather special experience.
And while I’m certainly not saying anything new when it comes to the significance of music in games, I do urge you to go and check out live performances of game music; heck, if you can’t make a concert in person, at least check out the Skyrim 10th Anniversary Concert.
There’s so much scope to pick up on the extra nuance, craft, emotion, and feel when one can see and hear the soft tone of a flute solo or the powerful crescendo of a string section. For me, it builds on my already large appreciation of game music, making me hungry for more live performances and somewhat humbled by the sheer creativity and skill of the composers and musicians.
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