Arctic Awakening | Original Game Soundtrack

Arctic Awakening

Synopsis

Stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with only his court-mandated therapy bot for company, Kai searches for his lost co-pilot, Donovan, beginning a journey of discovery, personal growth, and survival.

A routine supply drop is cut short by a sudden storm when a bolt from the blue slices the tail section of Kai's plane.

Separated by miles of harsh terrain, Kai must battle the elements to save Donovan before he freezes, uncover the mystery behind the crash, and, against the odds, find a way home.

The Soundtrack

After seeing early screenshots, I knew I had to score this game! The landscapes pulled me into a world of snow drifts, tree-covered mountains, howling gales, and blizzards, where the sheer beauty of the environment might stop you as quickly as an avalanche.

Beneath its captivating art style is a sci-fi adventure filled with mystery and intrigue, which has been a joy to score. Narrative-rich games offer countless references for composition and always influence the soundtrack’s direction.

Over the course of more than three years, I wrote and implemented over three hours of music for Arctic Awakening. One of the things I love about narrative games is that the music isn't simply supporting individual scenes; it's helping shape the player's relationship with a place. Some players might speed across a frozen valley, while others might stop to take in the view or just sit with the landscape. The music has to be flexible enough to support all of those experiences.

Contrasting the wild Alaskan landscape with sci-fi elements, the score fuses folk instruments like the Bolivian Charango and Mando Guitar with electric guitar, lap steel, and synths to represent the hi-tech aspects of the story. The Charango and Mando Guitar perfectly evoke high, remote mountain spaces and the crisp, pure air of the wilderness.

Every great soundtrack needs a defining feature. For this score, finding it took time. Flutes alone were too light; clarinets or oboes too earthy. The breakthrough came with a combination of Recorders and Arturia’s MicroFreak lead tone, creating a haunting, agitated, ethereal sound — encapsulating artificial intelligence, personhood, and the theme of agency.

As the project evolved, so did the way the music interacted with the game itself. Working closely with James and the team at Goldfire, I used FMOD to build adaptive systems that allowed the soundtrack to respond to exploration, weather changes and story progression. My goal was always for the music to feel like part of the world rather than a layer sitting on top of it; an audible extension of the environment, quietly shifting alongside the player's journey through the wilderness.

Writing the music for this brilliant project has been an absolute joy! And I feel fortunate to work with such a talented team on such a stunningly beautiful game.

Check out my deep-dive feature on the score, recorded for the Save & Sound Festival.

Arctic Awakening released on Sep 18th, 2025, and is available on Steam, PlayStation Store, and Microsoft Store now.

If you're interested in the wider process of planning, commissioning and implementing music for video games, I've written a detailed guide for indie developers covering composers, licensing, budgeting and soundtrack production ⇲.

If you enjoyed the score to Arctic Awakening and are interested in collaborating, please drop me a line.