067DAYS GONE
OPM: What influenced the
Days Gone musical score?
NW: I think the two biggest
influences on the Days Gone
score are Deacon St John,
our protagonist, and the
setting of the Pacific
Northwest. Deacon is a biker
and a bounty hunter, and
biker culture is definitely
present in the game. I
thought including some
guitar in the score could be
interesting but writing a
score that’s all rowdy
bar-rock felt wrong. The
Pacific Northwest setting is
absolutely beautiful and it
really felt like the score
needed to connect to this
environment as well. It’s
rural but extremely different
from the rural south. There
are high deserts, snowy
mountains, massive forests,
and all these elements look
stunning in the game.
Deacon and the environment
seemed to call for an
organic, lived-in sound with a
touch of Americana. This led
to more guitars being
combined with string
orchestra and percussion.
I had to be careful to not
sound too “country”. These
colours seemed to connect
with Deacon on his journey
through this beautiful and
dangerous landscape.OPM: What would you say
defines the score?
To me, the ideas that define
the score are the tenacity of
the human spirit and the
value of relationships. Early
in the process John Garvin,
creative director at Sony
Bend Studio, said something
along the lines of ‘the gameisn’t simply about surviving,
it also examines why we
want to survive.’ When I
heard that, I was instantly
excited about all the places
the music could go. I found it
really interesting to be
navigating the survival
aspect and also this
introspective aspect at
the same time.OPM: Is there a refrain in
Days Gone you’re proud of?
NW: I’m quite happy with the
Days Gone main theme. It’s
simple but, to me, it
connects to Deacon and
some of that introspectionI was mentioning. I think it
feels like it belongs in this
beautiful setting. It has a
little bit of melancholy but
it’s not hopeless and I think
it sets the tone well for
this dangerous and
emotional journey.OPM: You’ve composed for
film and games. What’s the
biggest difference?
NW: The biggest difference
[...] is the departure from
the purely linear storytelling
that you have in a film. I know
exactly how the action will
play out in a film. I end up
watching a film hundreds of
times in the process of
scoring it and I can shape
the music to work with the
action on-screen. But in
games, you never know what
the player will do next. The
music has to respond to the
actions of the player and
that requires a different
compositional approach. To
score the interactivity in
Days Gone, we needed sort
of musical building blocks- pieces that could be
layered together or
connected sequentially to
alter the music so that it
follows the player’s actions.
OPM: Can you give us an
example from Days Gone?
We did a lot of intensity
layers where the score
would have a base layer that
felt right for Deacon riding
his motorcycle in a relatively
low-danger scenario. I then
wrote one or two more
layers to the piece that could
be added to the base layer to
increase tension, danger,
etc. If you play all the layers
together, they sound like one
piece of music. By adding
and subtracting layers, the
score can shift appropriately
when Deacon, say, rounds a
corner and is surprised by a
group of Freakers or when
he finishes a battle and
everything seems safe (for
the moment). The game
engine is really amazing and
it can even turn these layers
on or off on a musical beat.In conversation with
Days Gone composer
Nathan WhiteheadMUSIC MAN
quickest ways to rack up a high
number of Freaker ears. Yes, you read
that right. Freaker ears act as a form
of currency in the world of Days
Gone. You can trade them for supplies
or bike parts, and also in order to earn
camp vendor’s trust; no-one likes
Freakers, so if you present proof that
there’re a few less in the world thanks
to you, you’ll go up in your fellow
survivors’ estimation.
ROAD TO REDEMPTION
But we don’t just have to worry about
the here and now. As we burn down a
number of nests, unloading on any
Freaker that dashes out, Boozer stops
us. The biker is worried about his bro
as apparently Deacon is acting more
unhinged than usual. Boozer
comments how he always gets like
this before going back out to the
nearby abandoned Nero camp.
Sure enough, after clearing the
tattered tents and derelict medical
facilities of Freakers, Deacon happens
across a large rock, adorned with
flowers, and with a name scratched
into it: Sarah. And that recalls what
we saw right at the start.
The throughline of what we
play is a series of missions called
‘I Remember’, in which Deacon
confronts his past. An extended
flashback sequence shows the
new-in-town scientific researcher
Sarah meeting Deacon for the first
time when her car breaks down.
Having gone looking for phone signal,
the pair return to find a couple of
rednecks eyeing the abandoned car
furtively. What ensues is an awkward
fistfight where Deacon has none of
the tools or tricks he boasts in the
present day (Yakuza, this is not).
Deacon’s looking worse for wear,
and the fight only ends when Sarahintervenes and gives the mob the
scare of their lives.
Sarah is never far from Deacon’s
mind, and the aforementioned
organisation, Nero, soon proves to
be hardly defunct either. A set-piece
shortly after these reminiscences sees
Deacon racing after a low-flying Nero
helicopter in the present day. The
virus-infected wolves that get a bit
too close to our bike and the warning
shots fired by the buzzing chopper’s
hazmat-clad passengers aren’t nearly
enough to keep us away. Getting
closer, we see Nero operatives
attempting to collect a live Freaker
sample, only for them to abort the
mission as the horde draws near. If
Nero is still operational, just what is
it up to with the Freakers it manages
to catch? We’ll find out soon, as the
game releases later this month.