Hello Stalkers!
Soon after the full version of Chernobylite was released, we were surprised to see that many of your opinions about the game specifically mentioned the soundtrack. You praised it a lot, above all for its excellent rendering with the atmospheric sounds of the desolate Chernobyl Zone. At the same time, we started receiving questions about whether the game soundtrack would be made available sometimes in the future. Today we’re able to fulfill this wish: the soundtrack is available for purchase on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1847400/Chernobylite_Soundtrack/
However, we decided that it was definitely not enough to throw a soundtrack for you and nothing else. That is why we wanted to share something completely new and special: an insight into how the key musical themes for Chernobylite were created. And who would be more qualified to tell you about this process than the composer himself, Mikołaj Stroiński? Let’s dive right in.
Preludes to the Darkness
This is the theme you can hear right at the base. Delicate guitar strings calm us down and help us focus, build and plan Igor’s next moves. What’s interesting, Mikołaj had the pleasure to compose four pieces for an acoustic guitar for this particular part of Chernobylite.
"The need came more from the outside: players were attached to the so-called temporary music (from Early Access - perm.), which was based on an acoustic guitar. I never intended to treat this situation as an obstacle - quite the opposite. A composition for a solo instrument requires a responsible composer who can use the sounds of a given instrument as widely as possible. In such cases, my goal is usually to compose something musically interesting without distracting the player." Mikołaj also admitted that after creating these four songs, he subsequently had to use the guitar sounds in many other places in the game to ensure the coherence of the soundtrack.
Tatyana Theme
Chernobylite wouldn’t be Chernobylite without Tatyana and her trademark instrument - the violin. Both this, and the fact that the violin sounds were used in Early Access, meant that Tatyana's theme had to be composed for this instrument.
”This theme is divided into 5 short phrases that can be played in any order while keeping the musical sense” - says Mikołaj - “Tatyana appears randomly in the game and if she played the same phrase every time, it could seem trivial and quickly get boring. It is worth noting that the phrases have been composed in such a way that they always match any exploratory music playing in the background at the same time. As for the melody composition itself - to help stand out from the background of exploratory music, Tatyana's theme is built on broad musical intervals hence drawing attention to itself. The default harmony under the melody would be based on a simple relationship between the tonic and the dominant, which corresponds to the harmony of simple Russian songs."
Heist, start
More specifically, it's about the end-game theme, when Igor and his crew try to get to the power plant for the second time. As Mikołaj says, he had composed a piece consisting of four stems up to this point. Stems are groups of tracks ripped together into one file, such as, for example, all the drums, guitar, bass and vocal parts. They all loop in the game engine, but turn on and off in various combinations, depending on the moment of the game and the size of the space the player is currently in.
”So in the beginning, when the player traverses the forest and moves along the railroad cars, it is a fairly open space and three layers are “playing". When he enters the car and the situation of concentration occurs, the number of layers is reduced to two. After killing (or bypassing) the enemy soldiers, you exit into a very open area of the yard and the game engine turns on all layers, which also emphasizes the success of defeating the enemy. Around the yard, we face the task of opening the electric lock and the optics return to a more focused one. This is followed by another limitation of the reproduced layers of the work”.
Final Walk Amongst the Fractals
Igor's last visit to the fractal world required creating the right atmosphere. Mikołaj admits that in order to achieve the intended goal, he spent a lot of time programming and preparing appropriate sounds.
”Due to the fact that the world of fractals is a kind of afterlife, beyond time and full of unbridled energy, I started by creating sounds to support this energy - very intense, but set in a background, which gave it depth. For example, I recorded audio files and reversed them so that they would play backwards with high intensity. The imposition of a quick ostinato on the synthesizer has become the basis for a harmony that communicates a summary of the events contained in the game's plot and something great, unattainable and uncontrolled. The melody on the strings and the "howling organic sound" tells about the longing for another human being, but in a timeless, not intimate way, reflected in the fractal world. I gave the piece a broad "Hollywood" sound with adequate music production."
Hope you enjoyed the first part of the musical tour of Chernobylite. In the next installment, we will tell you more about the music accompanying the visits to some other locations.
That's it for today!
Take care, Stalkers!
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/