Transcript of Why Do Horror Games Sound So Beautiful?
Jacob Geller
0:02I get freaked out by...a lot of stuff these
days.0:06You know.0:07The world, generally.0:08Entropy.0:09The prospect of going outside.0:14Sometimes I just need a mental reset button,
something to lower my heart rate and kinda0:19bring me back to zero.0:21A systems diagnostic check.0:24And the thing is, I actually have that button.0:30Watch, I’ll show you.0:39Whewwwwww.0:41It’s like entering a decompression chamber.0:48Everything stressful is, if temporarily, blown
out of my brain and replaced with this oozing0:54synth.0:55In an article for Laced Records, Thomas Quillfeldt
said it sounded a bit like whale songs, and1:02it does!1:03It’s simultaneously mournful and reassuring,
a little haunted but not malevolent.1:08It feels...safe.1:11This feeling is appropriate, as many of you
probably already know.1:15The track is called Serenity, it’s by composer
Misao Senbongi, and it’s from Resident Evil1:214- one of the most successful, and influential
horror games of all time.1:26Also it has by far the most suplexes per minute
of any horror game in modern memory (just1:32sayin!1:33Just sayin!).1:35Serenity is actually a part of a grand Resident
Evil tradition- the save room.1:40Scrounging ammo, dodging zombies, trying to
fit a key AND a sparkplug AND a grenade launcher1:45in your inventory at the same time, it’s
all incredibly stressful stuff.1:49And that’s why the games, since the very
first one, have given you a respite in the1:53save room.1:54Take a breath, save your game, get everything
organized before you run outside again.2:00And, since the very first Resident Evil, these
rooms have kinda had a feeling like an eye2:05of a hurricane.2:07You aren’t safe permanently.2:09At some point, some point soon, you’re going
to have to brave the outside again, full of2:14undead and puzzles and not nearly enough shotgun
ammo.2:18But for a few precious seconds, you’re safe.2:22This continued throughout the series; even
if games didn’t have traditional save rooms,2:26they had something like a save theme.2:29It speaks to a core design ethos- it can’t
be full-on horror all of the time.2:35Ya need to give players a minute to rest.2:39And that brings us to Resident Evil 4, also
known as baby’s first resident evil.2:44Now I know that people say this game isn’t
traditional horror, and it’s not as scary2:49as your fixed-camera limited-ink-roll spooks,
but when I played this as a recently bar-mitzvah’d2:55boy, I was tense.2:57This opening fight in the village has the
goal of pushing you to your absolute limit,3:02and it wildly succeeds.3:04After the near misses and last-second headshots
and [head removal], I came out of this fight3:14literally trembling (again, I was 13).3:19Resident Evil 4 may not be the lurking-dread
kind of scary, but it is incredibly good at3:24making you feel on-edge, like you’re just
one missed shot away from certain death.3:29On my umpteenth playthrough, I can game the
systems and feel totally empowered, but on3:34my first, I found the flow of combat precarious
verging on exhausting.3:40On my umpteenth playthrough, I know which
areas have enemies and which areas don’t.3:44I know when I need to be on guard.3:46On my first though?3:47No security!3:49I had no idea where ganados might pop up,
who might be a potential threat.3:53Lakes aren’t safe.3:55Lamps aren’t safe.3:56Nothing is.3:57This all culminates in a fight against “El
Gigante,” a brute who’s likely to home-run4:02you right into the wall with a tree trunk
if you aren’t careful.4:06Again, it’s not keep-me-up-at-night scary,
but it is unbelievably intense.4:12And so to finish that fight, and then walk
down these stairs onto this secluded underground4:17dock and hear...this...it’s a genuinely
unforgettable moment for me.4:27It communicates, through those synthy whale
cries, actual safety.4:32Sure, you’re in the eye of the storm, but
nothing’s going to hurt you here.4:42I adore this series tradition.4:44One of my favorite parts is how the theme
grows and changes over the games, from the4:48simple synths of the first couple, to the
endless atmosphere of 4, to how the originals4:54are changed and updated in the remakes, all
the way to Resident Evil 7, which somehow5:00sounds like a decaying acoustic deconstruction
of the first.5:04It’s brilliant.5:06I also find it fascinating that the contrast
to horror isn’t happy either, isn’t bright5:11and bouncy.5:13Happy music is just distorted by the scares.5:16Instead, it’s just a return to something
like neutral, the thing presumably most needed5:22by the characters in these traumatic situations-
and the thing most needed by a 13-year old5:30uhh man.5:33Resident Evil isn’t the only series that’s
discovered this, either.5:36And here’s where things get cool, because
horror games in general have some of the most5:40strangely beautiful tracks I’ve heard in
gaming.5:45Is it because these games are just really
good?5:48Well yeah.5:49But I think there’s a throughline here too,
something deeper than just “non-scary music5:54makes the scary stuff more scary.”5:57There’s this kind of...longing, present
in all these tracks.6:01A desire to return to something that maybe
hasn’t even ever existed.6:06Look okay this is all getting very poetic
very fast, so let me put my money where my6:11mouth is, and by money I mean “foggy nightmareville,”
because it’s time to talk about Silent Hill.6:17I mean, have we ever been spoiled for choice
more than looking for beautiful music in Silent6:22Hill games?6:24There’s Promise and its reprise, everyone’s
favorite, just sad piano that’s a little6:29too intricate to allow a full descent into
mourning.6:34There’s the unsettlingly motivated “Rain
of Brass Petals,” a song that doesn’t6:40even appear in Silent Hill 3, but is on the
soundtrack and more importantly feels like6:44it understands the anxieties of these characters
perfectly.6:49There’s the incredible “Not Tomorrow,”
which has the distinction of being quietly6:55melancholy, maybe tinged with hopefulness,
while playing during a scene of true horror.7:29Silent Hill’s music frequently makes the
choice to unnerve rather than outright terrify;7:35they undercut themselves to achieve a greater
atmosphere, a choice I couldn’t respect7:40more (and a choice I’ve already talked about
at length woops).7:45But my favorite is what Not Tomorrow morphs
into in the next game- Silent Hill 2’s Theme7:57of Laura.8:03It still blows my mind that this song is from
a horror game at all.8:07It is so many things.8:09My friend Henry noted that it almost feels
like two tracks layered on top of each other,8:14this acoustic base of guitar and strings drowning
in the ambiance that defines the rest of the8:20game’s sound.8:21But rather than these styles conflicting,
they accentuate each other- just like the8:26bizarre combination of the original Not Tomorrow
and the grotesquerie it scores.8:32It gets the Silent Hill sound, it walks that
tightrope so well.8:37It’s definitely got spooky vibes, but it
also just rocks?8:42And not in the way where it seems like it’s
trying to make the game feel “badass,”8:47because that almost never works.8:57Just in the way where this is like, a song
that I would actually listen to.9:03That longing feeling though, the one I mentioned
earlier?9:06That’s here in spades.9:08This is probably not an experience shared
by every age group, but the general vibe of9:13this song, the alternative-bordering-on-emo,
just hit this really specific musical memory9:18for me.9:20Music-analyzer extraordinaire Polyphonic hit
the nail on the head:9:24“It feels like something that would play
at my high school dance.”9:28Doesn’t it feel like that’s exactly the
vibe James is clinging to here?9:33One of the false and faded glory of high school
dances, of that foggily remembered “best9:38night of our lives”?9:40The entire game is framed around a trip back
to a town based on the memory of one nice9:45weekend he had with his wife, back when their
relationship was magical and the future darkness9:51was just a speck on the horizon.9:54When this game was made, 20 years ago, I’m
sure the tone of this song had a completely9:58different connotation.9:59But I, like James, can only see things through
clouded memories.10:04This song, like the entire town, is a surprise
punch of nostalgia.10:09It’s no surprise that Akira Yamaoka scored
essentially every Silent Hill game.10:14He gets this series dude.10:16He has helped define its essence.10:26Music brings those subtextual feelings to
the surface.10:29It’s why I use it in every minute of my
videos, and it’s certainly not unique to10:34one genre.10:36But it has a special power in horror, maybe
because our emotions are already so heightened,10:41maybe because the simple act of being afraid
inherently connects us to that world better.10:48Fearing something means that, even for a couple
minutes, that thing has power over you.10:53And while some horror uses that power to just,
you know, keep scaring you, it can also be10:59leveraged in a different direction- using
that built-in empathy to subvert those spooks11:04into something even more compelling.11:08The game Amnesia: The Dark Descent is familiar
to most gaming folks.11:13The horror game that popularized the “no
fighting, only hiding” first person gameplay,11:18the ~scariest game ever,~ the game that launched
a thousand screaming lets players.11:23A lot of people have also heard of the sequel;
after all, it has one of history’s great11:30names.11:31AMNESIA: A MACHINE FOR PIGS11:35But I rarely, if ever, hear this game talked
about.11:39There are vanishingly few monster chases in
the game, it doesn’t have nearly the clickbait-ability11:45of the first, and it’s also just...really
weird.11:48I mean, the subtitle is A Machine for Pigs.11:53It does not make itself easy to parse.11:57The game takes place at the very end of 1899.12:00You play as Oswald Mandus, a dude who wakes
up in a cage and has (wait for it) AMNESIA.12:07As you wander around your spooky house that
periodically makes loud noises, Oswald determines12:13that his children are stuck in the bowels
of his house, and he has to descend into the12:18depths to find them.12:21The “Machine for Pigs” part comes into
play as our protagonist discovers he’s got12:25a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.12:28Oswald, good ol Ozzie, reliably amnesiated,
gradually figures out what’s going on with12:35his other half- Mandus.12:37The dude-stick with me here- took a trip to
Mexico, plundered an old temple, and found12:43a “stone egg.”12:44That stone egg showed him a vision of the
future so unbearably horrifying that Mandus12:50went full Doomer, plunging all his resources
into a machine that would basically kill all12:55of humanity because complete annihilation
would be more merciful than the 20th century.13:00Also he killed his own children as a sacrifice
to the machine, and also because it would13:05be kinder than them dying in World War 1.13:10Wooooooooof.13:12(also the machine turns people into pigs.13:16Humans are the pigs, but also...pigs are the
pigs.13:19That’s the name.13:20A Machine for Pigs is what Mandus creates,
but also...the world is a machine for pigs.13:27We are all pigs)13:31It is a weird, fascinating game, one that
foregoes many of the horror game mainstays13:36that its own predecessor helped create.13:39In case you didn’t get this from the paragraph
about the guy killing his kids because of13:42World War 1, it’s a game about psychological
horror and that chases you through the halls13:48far more often than like, big pig dudes.13:53Oh but there’s another thing I didn’t
mention and that’s that it’s scored by13:57Jessica Freakin Curry.14:01For those who don’t know, Jessica Curry
was a longtime co-head of the studio The Chinese14:06Room, and is basically a rock star of video
game composition.14:09Dear Esther’s remarkable score was all her
work and she both directed AND composed Everybody’s14:15Gone to the Rapture, which I can’t play
here because I’ll get demonetized but trust14:19me when I say it is maybe the most beautiful
score to a game...ever written?14:25Ever?14:26It’s on spotify go listen to it please.14:31But in between those two games, she also wrote
the score for A Machine for Pigs and did not14:37miss the opportunity to make some truly bone-chilling
sounds.14:45But, because she’s Jessica Curry, it also
has...this.15:02This song, titled “Mandus,” plays over
the final section of the game, as you find15:07the core of the giant machine you’ve been
trekking through over the last several hours.15:12A voice pleads with you to not turn off the
machine, tries to express how awful the coming15:17century will be, and now it’s not your Jekyll
or Hyde, it’s the machine itself, sentient15:23enough to be utterly horrified by the future.15:25“A house of skulls in the jungle.15:28The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and
bled and gassed and starved and beaten and15:35murdered and enslaved.15:36This is your coming century!15:39They will eat them Mandus, they will make
pigs of you all”15:49And given the content of this monologue, it
seems like the song should be extraordinarily15:53grim.15:54Dead kids!15:55Mustard Gas!15:57Nuclear Bombs!15:58But instead you have this delicate series
of broken chords giving ways to strings and16:03a vocal track that both just race up and down
faster and faster, almost like the industrialization16:10Mandus and the machine have been dreading.16:12And it’s not victorious, it’s not a defeat
of the prophecy, everything they’ve seen16:17in the twentieth century does come to pass,
but it’s not horror either, it’s this16:24sense of sheer inevitability, and it’s an
incredibly difficult line to walk tone-wise.16:33How do you sell a finale in which the character’s
ultimate choice is to ensure the continuation16:38of the World Wars and mass starvation and
all of the other cruelty humans are capable16:43of, but by doing so also ensuring...humanity?16:48What does that sound like??16:51But it’s almost silly to ask these questions,
because we know what it sounds like.16:56Because Jessica Curry nailed it, as she always
always does.17:01We have Mandus, as well as the following song,
“The New Century,” to beckon us into the17:08dark.17:14At this point you might just be thinking “great,
Jacob likes pretty songs, awesome, good job,”17:20and you’re right I do like pretty songs,
but it’s not always enough to just throw17:25some nice sounding music in your horror game
and call it a day.17:29In The Evil Within, a game directed by Resident
Evil 4 mastermind Shinji Mikami, it does the17:35same safe room trick as Resident Evil.17:38No enemies, take a breath, inject some green
goo into your brain.17:42But the game indicates it, not with moody
synths, but with a really familiar song: Clair17:48de Lune.17:49Virtually every time you hear this song, you
can zoom back to this safe asylum through17:54a broken mirror, the song should hit that
same “eye of the hurricane” feeling as17:58Resident Evils.17:59And it’s...fine?18:01I’m certainly not here to throw shade at
Debussy, the song itself is gorgeous.18:07But it doesn’t stir the same feelings within
me as those quiet typewriter rooms, it doesn’t18:13have the same weight as those synth-whales
slowly calling.18:18The thing is, Clair de Lune isn’t much beyond
pretty in this game.18:22It doesn’t really hit that nostalgia center
for me, it doesn’t yearn for a world different18:27than the one we’re in.18:28And I’m criticizing The Evil Within, a game
I genuinely like a lot, to set the table for18:34a game that does this exceptionally well.18:38You know what?18:39A game that does almost everything exceptionally
well.18:41Hell, it deserves its own titlecard.18:44Flip the switch, here we go.18:59The Evil Within 2, still helmed by Shinji
Mikami and still starring the first game’s19:06not particularly compelling protagonist, released
3 years after the first one and sold about19:1125% as many copies.19:15It also knocked my freakin socks off.19:18This game has style.19:21There are so many deliberate choices here,
like how utterly weak you feel, or the deliciously19:26indulgent and twin peaks-y coffee drinking,
or the fact that nothing tells you this nightmarish19:39wight doesn’t go down with a simple stealth
kill.19:57Evil Within 2 feels like exactly the game
Mikami wanted to make, it is genuinely wonderful20:02and deserves to be played.20:04Now I’m about to spoil the story, so...do
what you will.20:10Describing every plot twist in Evil Within
2 would be a difficult thing to do, and I’m20:15not even gonna try.20:17Here’s the broadest possible overview:20:19There’s an evil corporation that controls
essentially a...VR horror world, where you20:26lie in a bathtub and connect your brain to
this thing.20:29They want to make this VR world...more powerful...so
they can take over the real one?20:36I dunno it’s not important.20:37Point is, you’re in this VR horror world.20:40To make the horror world work, the evil corporation
needed someone who could keep it stable to20:47be like, the base of it.20:49And that person ends up being Sebastian’s
very young daughter, and so they kidnap her20:54and pretend she died in a house fire.20:57Sebastian is devastated over the loss of his
daughter while they use her to control the21:01VR world.21:02Still with me?21:03No?21:04That’s okay, it- well it’s not that important
either.21:08Sebastian’s wife, Myra, is obsessed with
the idea that their daughter isn’t dead,21:13and was instead captured by a shadowy organization.21:16She joins that organization and goes inside
the VR horror world with the plan of rescuing21:22her daughter, but when she gets there, she
kinda loses control inside the system and21:27decides that both she and her daughter should
stay there forEVER, but then Sebastian shows21:33up and shoots her corrupted form in the...head?21:37question mark? a bunch of times and that brings
her back to her senses and she realizes that21:42Sebastian should take their daughter and go,
but she has to stay behind and destroy the21:50VR horror world from the inside.21:54On paper, it’s...it’s not Hamlet.21:57The first game had a similarly convoluted
plot, and I played through that whole thing22:01without really caring about any of the characters,
and while I adored Evil Within 2’s gameplay22:06systems and world design and setpieces, I
was feeling pretty much the same way.22:13And then I reached the last level.22:15I’ve already told you what happens here-
Sebastian shoots his not-wife’s glowing22:20orange goop a bunch and then she becomes good
again.22:23But here’s what I didn’t tell you.22:28Chapter 16, “In Limbo,” happens in this
white void, the world crumbling in on itself22:41and reducing back to this ashy nothingness.22:46After a point, there’s no combat, there’s
no gameplay tension, no threat of a zombie22:51jumping out and clawing you.22:53It’s just this long walk to your house on
top of this hill, a house you’ve revisited22:59many times in dreams and nightmares, a house
you’ve seen burn to the ground over and23:05over.23:06And all the while, this slow walk up this
hill, you’re hearing this song.23:11It’s called “Making Your Way Home” by
composer Masatoshi Yanagi.23:17And I mean...good lord.23:34There is some of Serenity here from Resident
Evil 4, some of those quiet synths and otherworldly23:40calm.23:41I said Serenity felt like a return to zero,
and this track could have easily been that-23:47the level is even called “In Limbo.”23:50But instead, there’s more- these strings
layered over it, the combination of the artificial23:56and the real just like Laura’s Theme.23:58And for the first time in the game, I felt
the significance of this to Sebastian.24:05Walking up this hill, towards his house that
he watched burn to the ground, to his daughter24:10who he thought was dead and his wife who he
thought was lost, you can feel the tragic24:15conflict here.24:18There is a world where he just stays in this
house, back to almost-normalcy, back to a24:23life he resigned to being lost years ago.24:26There’s a world where he can go back to
his old life.24:30But it’s false.24:32And so instead, this walk up to his house
is a goodbye, to those pieces of his memory24:37and the life he once thought he’d live,
and all the while those strings.24:44The game knows how powerful this song is,
and brilliantly, it never lets you escape24:50it.24:51Throughout the game, like the first, you’ve
traveled through mirrors to a sort of alternate-dimension24:55police station, where you level up and save
and stuff, but here, in the limbo of this25:00last level, that police station has just crashed
into the hillside with everything else.25:08Instead of zooming to it through a mirror,
you just walk through the door.25:12And instead of temporarily escaping the outside
world, now it comes in with you.25:18I want to emphasize this again; for dozens
of hours, this office has been musically and25:23physically separate.25:25It’s been the escape, it’s been the safe
room.25:27It is not until the very end that it is thrust
into the story proper, and it becomes another25:33remnant of Sebastian’s past that he’ll
have to leave behind.25:37“When this is all over, you won’t need
me again.”25:42“Because this will be over?25:44Or because I’ll be dead?”25:45“The answer is the same either way.”25:49Is this all there in the text?25:52I guess.25:54But it is entirely because of the music that
this scene works.25:58A direct confrontation with your longing for
the past, demonstrating all the hopes and26:04dreams and loss that lives there, while simultaneously
recognizing the impossibility of that return.26:12And what’s even better, what drives this
home as such a crowning victory of music,26:17is that replaying the game I realized this
theme had been there the whole time.26:22It’s literally there for the titlecard!!26:37With that music comes that emotional weight.26:39With that music comes that longing.26:43It is a song that makes the entire game better.26:49I recognize that we’ve gotten away from
“horror” here.26:52When I started writing this, I wanted to find
a way why it was key to the genre, why these26:58songs were so necessary to creating the atmosphere
that also was conducive to being scared.27:04I do think there’s something there- that
horror is always a fight to return to what’s27:09known, and these songs reflect the futility
of ever walking back the past, ever turning27:14back what’s already happened.27:17But I think there’s something simpler, more
fundamental going on too.27:22These songs transcend genre, because people
aren’t genres and what these tracks make27:28me feel is just...connection, and empathy,
and that’s not a horror thing or a video27:34game thing or even a story thing, that’s
just art.
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