The latest Starfield mini-documentary has broken down the construction of its soundtrack, as audio director Mark Lampert and composer Inon Zur detailed the artistic process for creating the game’s score. As Lampert explained, music plays a pivotal role early on in the development of Bethesda’s games, setting the tone for the construction of those worlds.
“Everything I’ve worked on at this studio, the music started early on, as early as the concept art, for the game,” Lampert said. “From when I began here in 2005, Oblivion was already well underway but as we went on to Fallout 3 after that, that was one of the first things that I worked on music-wise, the main theme. That’s always been the case, where the main theme sets the tone for everything else we do in the game. And there’s time throughout the entire project, for that to evolve.”
Lampert and Zur also mentioned the creation of the “signature” of a game’s soundtrack, which informs the rest of the score’s development. For Starfield, Zur referred to the game’s music as a “sanctified triplet” that references a circular journey of streaming, change, and returning to its original source.
“When we built the traditional orchestral sound palette, we actually divided the orchestral group,” Zur explained. ” For example, we took the woodwinds and created a whole woodwind layer that almost represents particles in space, because they don’t play melodies at all. They play sort of like a high frequency sequence. They sound something between organic to synthetic.”
Starfield launches on PC and Xbox Series X|S on November 11, and will be available day one on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. As its release date draws closer, more tidbits of information on the game have been revealed, such as the robotic assistant VASCO, the game’s NASA-punk art direction, RPG elements that are enhanced by a persuasion system, and how making a living in the galaxy looks challenging.
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