The Music of Torchlight II

As part of a massive “Music of Torchlight II” feature, Runic Games has treated us to a streaming version of the game’s theme track, a YouTube video highlighting their recording session in Slovakia, and an in-house Q&A with composer Matt Uelmen and CEO Max Schaefer about the game’s soundtrack, their musical inspirations, and more. First, the recording session video:

And then a bit from the interview:

How much does the ongoing development of Torchlight II affect or change the music you’ve already written?

Matt: It definitely shapes the final nature of tunes – the pacing of the game in the big picture is very important, especially in terms of how up-front and beat-heavy the music should be. The current build is funny, in that we have plugged in music from later acts into the opening of the game, so you start out with this gloomy, heavy music in your first time out of town, exploring these pretty green steppes. Avoiding a final game experience like that is a big part of the job, and having the creative control to make sure that placement is done right is a big part of what I love about the Runic experience.

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What music from other games inspires you?

Matt: I am sure I will spend my entire career just trying to live up to the high standards and creativity that Blizzard had when I was there. In retrospect, even if that team had its frustrations, the vanilla WoW team was really an all-star group that, in its strengths, had everything you could ever want from game composers. Trying to make music with the spiritual quality of Hayes, the intellectual fiber of Duke, the drive of Stafford, the textures of Bush, will be a challenge that will last a lifetime, and knowing those guys personally and a little bit about the way they made that music is the kind of education money can’t buy.