Arctic Awakening | Original Game Soundtrack

Arctic Awakening is a first-person narrative adventure game developed by Goldfire Studios for the PC, Mac, Lynx and consoles.

Synopsis

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

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

Now separated by miles of inhospitable terrain, Kai must battle the elements to save Donovan before he freezes, uncover the mystery of what brought down his plane and maybe, against the odds, find a way home.

The Soundtrack

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

Underneath its captivating art style, we find an equally charming sci-fi adventure story filled with mystery and intrigue, which I have absolutely loved writing for. Narrative-rich games often offer numerous interesting points of reference for music composition, and they find a way to influence the direction of a soundtrack.

For instance, contrasting science fiction with wild nature, the narrative has enabled me to create a soundtrack that also fuses similar musical elements.

Grounding the score with folk instruments like the Bolivian Charango and Mando Guitar, I contrast their traditional tones with modern timbres from the electric guitar, lap steel and a select palette of synths that represent the hi-tech, sci-fi elements of the story.

The mountains and wild spaces of the game are represented in the score by the Charango and Mando Guitar. For me, these tiny instruments perfectly evoke the high, remote places of the world; their sound instantly conjures the feeling of breathing a lungful of clear, crisp mountain air.

All good soundtracks need a defining feature. A sound that is instantly recognisable. But for this score, that individual sound took quite a while to find!

I had a strong intuition about using woodwinds in this score, but for the longest time, I couldn't find the right combination of instruments to create the distinctive sound I was looking for. Flutes on their own, whilst airy and light, didn't sound ethereal enough, and clarinets or oboes, too earthy or too reedy.

It wasn't until I discovered a combination of Recorders with a lead tone from Arturia’s Micro Freak that the score took on its distinct personality. A beautiful, agitated, haunting amalgamation of early and modern, a sound that somehow encapsulated the themes of artificial intelligence, personhood and what it means to be alive with agency in this world.

Writing the music for this brilliant project is such good fun! I feel honoured to be working with such a great team on such a stunningly beautiful game.

As work nears completion, I will share more updates, but in the meantime, please visit my home page to check out the Arctic Awakening Feature, a deep dive on the score specially recorded for the Save & Sound Festival.