Hellgate: London Music Interview

HellgateLondon.de has conducted an interview with Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco, the two composers responsible for the music in Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London.
Q: What guidelines did you have for the Hellgate music?

Sascha & Cris: Musically, it was a free-for-all in the beginning. Dave had put together a document of musical styles that he thought might work in the game. It was up to us to take all those conflicting styles and come up with our own sound that would work in the game. Every track incorporates something from that original list though. We've combined orchestra, rock, electronica, drum and bass, etc in the final product.

On the technical side, we definitely had some limitations in order for the audio engine to work correctly. These limitations didn't really hold us back in any way though. For example, to transition seamlessly from an ambient cue into an action cue both tracks had to be the exact same length. If we started in G minor and moved to B minor in one cue we had to do exactly the same thing in the other. By doing this however, we could move between both cues so easily that you would never really notice that the music was changing in the game. It feels extremely natural.