Hello commander!

We have arrived at the end of the year. Happy holidays are in order! As in previous years, the Eugen Systems team will go on a much-needed break, but we’ll be back in full force in the new year!

Before we leave you to be merry for Christmas, let’s talk a bit about some festive music - WARNO’s original soundtrack.
How did we create the stirring sounds to accompany World War III?

Musical inspiration

During WARNO’s development, not only did we want to have everything top-notch in terms of visuals, game mechanics, authentic units, sound design, and the tremendous “oomph” of things going boom… we also needed music.

When we had to decide what kind of soundtrack to use for World War III, we deliberated. The safest bet would have been to work with some generic all-purpose tracks. Nobody would have really disliked them, but neither would they have stood out.

We decided we didn’t want to go that route. For WARNO, we wanted a memorable soundscape, recognizable and with a “heavy” character. A lot of work in the audio department went into making this vision a reality. The choice was simple: the music had to follow this approach.

So, how do you build an original soundtrack “with heavy character”? You pick a style and let your music coalesce around it.

A style fit for the ages

WARNO takes place in 1989. As such, we hit upon synthwave, a modern-sounding tribute to the typical sound of the 80s. This style reflects a coming-of-age of music heavily marked by the use of synthesizers, electronic musical instruments invented in the 60s, but especially used a lot in the 1980s.

We started digging into the huge musical repertoire of the internet. We searched everywhere and everything: YouTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and many online music catalogs. All of it to find the exact music that would fit the game.

At the same time, Eugen members were showing military video clips, often with a punchy melodic background. It was at this moment we stumbled upon THE musical track that would form the basis of all our future work:

Let’s welcome to the stage Mauzer. The music featured in this collection of historical clips was just fantastic. A quick search gave us the name of the song and artist, which turned out to be French - what a coincidence. The artist was Triptidon, and the song, Sinful. We felt the music to be punchy, uplifting, synthwave-ish, and, if we might say so, “battle-tested.”

We used this song as the musical reference for future soundtrack searches.

The WARNO trailer

One year ago, the time came to officially reveal WARNO to the world. We needed a good track for this announcement trailer. None of the music we had gathered until this point was as fitting and convincing as Sinful. We didn’t plan to include it in the game, but it was getting close to inevitable, as we required some sort of music.

We contacted Triptidon and made a deal. The arrangement was friendly and straightforward. This was great because many of us at Eugen liked his music. Do check out Triptidon when you can!

With games and movies, we often underestimate the impact the soundtrack has on the overall game experience and enjoyment. It’s a shame because music plays a huge role in defining the atmosphere of a game. This is no exception with WARNO’s trailer: the combo of visuals and great tunes should lift it to a different level.

The early days of Early Access

WARNO launched into Steam Early Acess in February 2022. We included several music tracks, with a heavy emphasis on our chosen style, which received a lot of positive feedback.

There was one issue, however. The soundtrack contained no original music. Our work was focused on selecting and licensing existing tracks, none of which would be exclusive to WARNO. This meant that some players might recognize a song from a different place, which is not what we want to happen too often. It dilutes the character of the game and the identity of the WARNO’s soundtrack.

Moreover, the soundtrack contained several quieter songs but only one real punchy, bombastic track. Having a hard time finding these, we decided to kill two birds with a single stone and started crafting some songs ourselves.

Original music

Eugen contains many multidisciplinary team members, with some of them well-versed as musicians. Some of the original music was composed by our crew, and after some rounds of iterations, we got more uptempo “aggressive” tracks.

Integrating these tracks into WARNO would restore the chill and punchy balance. What do you think? Sounds awesome?

The studio

So, where is all of this magic created? Check out the setup for all the musical awesomeness that is Let’s Go and Silicon Tribes. We are packing some heavy ordnance!

The red-blinking synth below the screen on the left is an Access Virus TI, and the mini-keyboard at the bottom of the screen to the right is a handy MIDI controller called the MPKmini by Akai. The electric guitar is a GIO from Ibanez; this is the one you hear on Silicon Tribes. Finally, the strange-looking hexagonal-titled thingy on the right is an Axis-49 from C-Tru (basically a MIDI keyboard pimped with hexagonal keys).

On the software side, the DAW is the GNU/Linux version of Bitwig Studio. It contains a bunch of built-in synthesizers and FX - some of them actually sound pretty good!

No setup would be complete with a solid pair of monitors. Some of you might have already spotted the unmistakable Rokit 6 speakers from KRK.

And the SNES mini? For inspiration, of course.

Music outtro

With the first two tracks gaining positive reactions from WARNO’s playerbase, we took it as a sign that we were going in the right direction. We chose to add more original songs and compile them into an official OST playlist on YouTube.

We’re glad the music has been received well, as we were not entirely sure about the direction to take and how the songs would pan out. Using generic music would have been the simple choice, but we are happy we stuck to our guns and went for a more stylistically unique way. More tracks to come in the future!

For now, let’s crush and defeat the enemy with the blood-pumping sound of the amazing kick drum. Let us know what you think!

See you on the battlefield

A musical ending to the last DevBlog of the year. The first week of January sees our return to the offices. It has been a pleasure, commander. Let’s make 2023 a kick-ass year (and expect some new content drops at the very beginning)!

From the whole Eugen Systems team: we wish you happy holidays and all the best for 2023.

Check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Get together with other players on either the excellent Discord server, Reddit page, YouTube or our Instagram.

See you on the battlefield, commander!