![]() ![]() “Showing off the music you listened to growing up is almost like reading from your diary. “It was a personal one for me,” smiles Johanes. Fronted by Nine Inch Nails and the Black Keys, the tracklist reads more like a rock festival poster than a video game collaboration. ![]() The game’s own original soundtrack is a vibrant, joyful mix of alt-rock and electronic fuzz that lands somewhere between Refused and indie sleaze – but the licensed tracks are a headline draw. “This was a key component of the enjoyability of the game.” So, even if you whiff an attack and come in before the chorus, so to speak, you’re adding something to the sonic landscape – but it might be more cutting room floor material than it is lead single. “We had to make it feel like what the player did, or the enemies were doing, added to the song to create a sort of unique jam session,” says Kobori. The developers concocted a tool called Inst FX, which delivers a suite of musical sound effects when the player or enemies attack and connect their hit. “For that there was a lot of trial and error in making sure that the song would connect appropriately.” “For the cutscenes, the music needed to be seamlessly integrated without a pause to keep the tempo,” explains Kobori. When the controls are wrested away from you for a story scene, the musical engine keeps purring. ![]() The result is an artisanal audiovisual fusion, music and game design working in harmony. Since the progression of the level and the progression of the music are intrinsically tied, I had to match the arrangement with the stage layout or gimmicks in the stage, constantly adding or adjusting sections … There were times where we specifically wanted to match something in the game to a phrase or riff from the music, so I had to channel a rhythm game mentality and arrange the song while playing the game to think of something that would match.” “When I made demos for the songs, I would construct them with their ups and downs of intensity, in line with a visual document provided by the director for the level they would be used in. ![]() “It’s not an exaggeration to say that this game was driven by music, since at even a programming level,” laughs audio director and composer Shuichi Kobori. But making the world match the music, and vice versa, was a technical and creative challenge. It sounds tough, but thanks to the living world nodding along to the beat with you – whether it’s trees swaying or factory machinery juddering into life in 4/4 time – there’s enough going on to guide even the beat-deaf into rockstar territory. Want to pop off some cool shots in between melee attacks? You better learn how to work with a syncopated beat, then. Want to finish off your combo by slamming a guitar into the ground and making shockwaves? Play a full bar, and hit every note in time. You’ll notice when you play that the entire world pulses in rhythm with the music. “While the gameplay is nothing like playing guitar or being in a band, the visceral feel of your attacks landing to the beat … to me it’s a sideways take on what it feels to be in that trance state where you are one with the music,” says Johanes. You land your attacks and combos on the beat, using a cobbled-together scrap-metal guitar as a weapon. It doesn’t play like the rhythm games that dominated back in the 00s, such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but more like an action game – closer to Devil May Cry than DJ Hero. “Not only is the game a love letter to music (especially the rock genre and the idea of a rockstar in general), it’s also a way for players who are not musicians to experience the sort of ‘performance high’ that one would get by playing music live,” explains director John Johanas. It stars a deeply uncool and talentless young dude transformed into a rock god, and the game wants to have the same effect on you. This unlikely rhythm action game was surprise released on Xbox Game Pass by the renowned horror studio Tango Gameworks earlier this year. Watching your dreams play out … Hi-Fi Rush. ![]()
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