Destiny 2 Game Soundtrack Review
Destiny 2 (2017) - Score Review
Destiny 2 is the second instalment in the ever so popular Destiny video game series by the gaming company Bungie. Destiny is Bungie’s largest project since their time on Halo, which Bungie walked away from after “Halo Reach” in 2010. With the history of Halo behind Bungie and the Halo series having one of the most popular and well written video game soundtracks of all time, it brings added pressure and expectation onto the composers and soundtrack of the Destiny series.
The Destiny 2 soundtrack composed by Michael Salvatori, Skye Lewin, C Paul Johnson, Rotem Moav & Pieter Schlosser. is a very large soundtrack, totalling 44 tracks overall and over 2 hours 30 minutes worth of music. With a mix of many different musical elements from powerful noble brass and percussion, to soft lush and dreamy string, woodwind and piano music. I will talk about some of the positives and negatives with this soundtrack and also some of the most notable tracks on the track list.
The Main Theme ( Inner Light )
The soundtrack opens with the main theme of Destiny 2 titled “Inner Light”. This track essentially sets the tone for the majority of the soundtrack as it’s full of loud melodic brass, lush choir and strings supported by woodwinds and epic percussion. This track straight from the get go has a triumphant, noble feeling surrounding it. The track opens with a giant swell and crash on the cymbal, which leads into a big open chord for the choir and melodic horns. This really places the gamer and listener into that outer space/Sci-Fi world of Destiny and makes you feel like you are ready to strap yourself in for an epic adventurous journey to come. This track is the basis for a lot of the other tracks used in Destiny 2.
Nessus
Nessus which is track 25 of the soundtrack in my eyes would be another stand out track within this game for two main reasons. The first reason would be the change of instrumentation in this track compared to the majority of the others. Instead of being another epic orchestral cue, this track is full of digital sounds and low, heavy synths. The track opens with deep dark drones and light digital sounds. A solo female singer enters at the beginning of the track. The singing is very lush and rich but it is also very contrasting to the dark digital sounds heard underneath. Overall This really compliments the track and I feel adds a dark atmospheric sci-fi feeling to the track. Once the singing stops there is a big drop into the main part of the track. Now the synths take over and the track is dominated with dark powerful drones and pulsing synths. The singing enters back in the middle of the track but it’s fully taken over by all the synths and digital sounds. Which places the player and listeners in a very futuristic sound world. The second aspect of this track that allows it to be a stand out track is the use of the ‘Vex’. This is the signature robotic, machine sounds within the Destiny universe and these sounds are incorporated into this track. This soundtrack overall is actually lacking a lot of Vex sounds so that is why this track stands out more with the incorporation of it.
Dominus Ghaul
The next track I feel is worth looking at on this soundtrack is track number 30 titled “Dominus Ghaul”. This track to me had a lot of potential but unfortunately did not fully live up to my expectation. Ghaul is the main villain you are trying to defeat in Destiny and he is the overall leader of the Cabal species. This track has a very dark menacing atmosphere. Also it has a lot of power behind it with driving string ostinatos and rhythmic percussion. The main melody lines of this track are carried out by the brass section. A stand out feature of this track was the use of the Cabal melody from Destiny 1. I feel this is a smart idea compositionally as it keeps an overall general theme for the species of the Cabal. Also a true fan of the franchise will then recognise this music from the first game as the music for the Cabal. The reason I felt this track did not live up to its expectation is that
it was too generic and at times. It just felt like your normal boss battle music and I feel for Ghaul you could of had a musical story for him and let him have his own unique theme. Yet I felt this wasn’t really the case in this track and it kind of let it down. It is a very powerful action track but overall I just felt it was a bit too generic and not unique enough for the character it was set for.
The Farm
The last track I want to talk about on this review is track number 19 “The Farm”. This track is one of the most heard and most popular tracks in this game. The farm is the main social space of Destiny 2 where you can interact with other players, buy and trade goods and much more. So the atmosphere is very different to all the other areas in the game one of the reason behind this is the music. The change of instrumentation really helps this track make an impact on the gaming experience. Unlike the majority of the other tracks in this game the melodies in this track are not dominated by the brass. For this track the woodwinds and piano are very prominent supported with very lush strings. This helps to create a very magically and mystical atmosphere for this area. Which is great contrast to the gamer as you can feel the mood change and you feel safe in this area while playing. The heavy use of the piano especially creates a very intimate tone with this track and the overall change in texture and atmosphere in this track really helps it stand out among the rest of the soundtrack.
Conclusion
The only negative points I really have to say about this soundtrack is that it can become a little generic at times, there could of been a bit more use of “The Vex” and also it seems to reuse and just change around the ideas of the main theme “Inner Light” for many of the tracks. On the other hand this is very understandable for such a large soundtrack and certain tracks have to fit correctly into the game as the player is progressing through the game and this will create a bit of redundancy in some of the tracks. Yet overall I really enjoyed this soundtrack the mixing, production and
orchestration is amazing and it has a nice mix of that big epic cinematic feel with parts of digital and sci-fi elements. It really helps to set you in the world of Destiny keep you immersed as a player.
Written by Dean Fagan