The last stop on our first trip from Passthecontroller was our first trip from Software. This was a soundroom where Reed’s composer Shoi miyazawa created a fantastic soundtrack that filled the land with notes of hope, melancholy and conflict. This touches on our interviews with notes from the director given to Nightrign’s music, as well as Miyazawa’s own personal influence, particularly what the notes from the director are.
Passthecontroller: So I just wanted to start by asking how I fell into the world of composing music for video games. Are you a huge fan?
Shoi Miyazawa – Lead Sound Designer for Eldenling Night League:
I was a fan of the Armored Core Games. So when hoshino-san approached me about hiring at fromsoftware, I was very interested. I’m a huge fan of Armored Core Music. I also like a few other titles from my childhood, such as Ganbare Goemon and Secret of Mana. So I’m constantly doing research and trying to find inspiration from these titles as well. The Castlevania series was just as a big musical inspiration.
Are there any favorite composers along these same lines that may have influenced your work? Generally speaking, it’s not just video games.
I’ve always been a fan of King Crimson and Marilyn Manson. I like this kind of different kind of atmosphere in music.
Switching gear to Eldenling and Night League, what is the process of composing something like Eldenling? Do you give your boss or location concept art and then use that inspiration for your sound? Or are you given specific notes of the feel and mood the director is looking for?
As you mentioned, there are several approaches we can take. Directors may briefly explain their moods and where they want. Sometimes it’s from the existing concept art of the game. And that’s a simple text-based order, such as the description of the boss’s backstory and the arenas they’re fighting for and stuff like this.
Is working on the Nightreign soundtrack different to the experience of working on the soundtrack for the main base game?
Of course, it’s an Eldenling spinoff, so I wanted to transfer or carry over certain elements from the Eldenling and the kind of vibe it emits. I’ve had a lot of direct talk about the director himself discussing the Elden Ring aspects and how we should approach Nightreign. And while he wanted this to be completely different from the soul title, I think he also wanted it to be catchy in his own unique way. Therefore, offering this kind of catchiness and something different from Eldenling was very important in our work.
Can you probably explain some of the notes that the director may have given you regarding the sound and tone of this soundtrack? Were there any recurring themes you’d like to make a hit?
Yeah. So, seeing like night was an important theme in night towing, but we wanted this feeling of loneliness, loneliness, darkness and nighttime loneliness. These were the elements we wanted to incorporate into our music.
Of the many projects you’ve worked on, is it your favorite and most challenging?
Of course, I have a lot of fond memories of working on titles on from and it’s really hard to lock into a particular title. However, there are couples whose works particularly stuck to me. One of them was when he composed his spouse Radaan for Eldenling. What I want to do is to compose in a dark room, like a dimly lit room. So I had this feeling while I was composed. Such kinds reached the work for the spouse Radhan.
The other is the track from disc 3 on the bonus soundtrack of Armored Core VI. I know this is a little different to the fantasy music we made in the game, but for me, Armoud Core was a series I particularly liked. And when I entered the company, it happened to be a little bit of the series, and a bit of the series. So I had something and there were some ideas out there, but AC IV was a much-anticipated game. It’s been a while. And Takes Me Apehtore was one of the original tracks we created for all the comprehensive disc sets of that bonus. It was a regaining memory of the time, and it was a truck. It was a piece I actually had in my head since I started working on those titles a bit, but it never really developed into those games. So, we remind you of many of those days and everything we have experienced with the armored core. And hopefully people can hear it too.
There are several composers believed to have worked in Eldenling. Could you talk a bit about how composing music in games like Elden Ring and Nightreign is a great way to help you out? Are you each working completely individually or do you work closely together despite being responsible for different works?
Generally, when you create music with From, it’s one track from one composer. That’s the general approach we take. But of course you can get advice and exchange ideas with other members of the sound team. But ultimately, the credits reveal that the person credited to that truck is the person who took over it to completion. But nightreign was a bit of an exception here. So there are multiple composers working on a single track in several instances.
One of the bosses we were able to check out today as part of our visit was Libra: The Creature of the Night. And I was wondering if you had some insight or story about what happened to the creation of that track.
In fact, in Libra, it was one of the rare cases in which a particular musical direction or idea was given within a character’s brief. It stood out to me. We had these themes that were about to bring something in as an appearance, and as the boss battle itself suggests, like themes of exotic nature and these impressions of insanity, or demonic nature to the boss. And again, taking into account the elements of victory and defeat, their trade-offs, their risk and rewards, we introduce this duality that can be seen before and after boss battles. We try to create a tough contrast with many of our bosses, but we wanted to take it to extremes, especially for Libra.
The contrast between the day and night of the boss battle is very impressive and is evident in the music. Could you please tell me a little about how you can compose these works?
So of course, this day and night cycle and this three-day structure is found in Nightreign. As mentioned earlier, I wanted players to feel this impressive sense of danger. The enemies and bosses become stronger as night approaches. We wanted the feeling of being more and more and more from your depths and forever. These are the emotions we are trying to convey through Nightreign’s music.
Is there anything you’re really excited about when you experience a particular song or the first time you’ve ever worked on playing?
So one thing that rivals the music we did for Eldenling and DLC really focused on the individuality of each of these bosses’ battles, which players encounter many times. So we really wanted to push the limits of music for each of these fights. And sometimes it was a case where we could really push it this far? And I think in the end we really expanded those limitations and really pushed the boundaries of music from within our fantasy titles. That’s what the players are looking forward to.
Returning to your own personal preferences, do you want to incorporate into your compositions or have an instrument you like?
It’s not an instrument, but when I first started dabbling in music it was a personal computer and using DTM software. That was my first real contact with making music, especially professional. So, as creators, software like this can really focus on the finer elements and really tweak these pieces to all the last notes and pitches. So I think this is something that players want to understand and hopefully realize when they hear these titles. I’m really into it, so perhaps because there’s too much healthy stuff at work.
One thing I’ve asked everyone talking about on FromSoftware is what your favorite game is. I know we talked a bit about video games from the musical standpoint, but is there a game that really stands out as your favorite game to date?
One of the games I remember is Mist. Adventure games like this, they usually only remember this very, perhaps only the reader or viewer, but this kind of pre-rendered scene will migrate from one side to the other. But you are experiencing the world and solving puzzles in this adventure. This really stuck to me as a player. Yes, I think mist is a good example.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer for Passthecontroller. You can find him on Twitter @jurassicrabbit
