Good game soundtracks?
I've been looking for some more instrumental music to listen to while working, besides putting FF and Stardew on loop.
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I've been looking for some more instrumental music to listen to while working, besides putting FF and Stardew on loop.
Obligatory Nier series music mention.
Surprised to not see FTL mentioned yet.
I'm loving the track Balatro has too. I wish that game had more music like the one song it has.
Chrono Trigger was fantastic. Look specifically for the instrumentals/orchestral on YouTube. 🤙
Thanks for commenting this so I didn't have to!
Another vote for the Bastion soundtrack by Darren Korb.
Seconding Bastion! That soundtrack got me though so many grad school papers/ projects. I keep telling myself I'll get around to actually playing that game, but I can't shake the feeling that the second I hear "Build that wall" I'ma have some ptsd flashbacks.
Ori and the Blind Forest. Every song in the soundtrack is brilliant
I beat you to it, but not by much ;p
Cuphead is a banger if you like that kinda music.
Nier Automata as well. Very different, but hauntingly brilliant.
Also, fallout radio if you're feeling that real classic sound.
Gotta love the Ink Spots!
The Dustforce OST maybe? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBB4108C5CB4E1DD6
Same artist who did the music for TUNIC. While its soundtrack isn't great to listen to alone in my opinion, it is phenomenal in game. To the point where watching the trailer gives me goosebumps.
Also, I emailed the artist once to ask permission to use the Dustforce soundtrack in a YouTube video I was making. They gave me permission and I sent the video to them when it was posted and they said very nice things about it.
Terraria.
Rimworld has an amazing soundtrack
Super Meat Boy - Ballad of the burning squirrel
Super Meat Boy - Forest Funk
Super Meat Boy - Betus Blues
The composer for Super Meat Boy has done lots of great tracks for Binding of Isaac and Crypt of the Necrodancer too (Danny Baranowsky)
Enter the Gungeon - Abbey or Die
Enter the Gungeon - Behold the Boss Eater
Enter the Gungeon - Boss Battle Beating
Metal Gear solid theme
Nine Sols - Collage
Hades soundtrack (all of it) + if you search for the composer (Darren Korb) then you'll find loads more great soundtracks he's done (notably for Bastion).
Hollow Knight soundtrack (all of it + the piano cover version)
Street Fighter 6 - Viator (theme for Ryu + there's a real cool metal cover that is on YouTube by an indie metal band)
Wipeout HD soundtrack (all of it)
Super Hexagon (all 3 tracks)
Hotline Miami soundtrack
Dead Cells
Lots of people have rightly mentioned FTL
Frank Kelpacki has done tons of great soundtracks across the whole Command and Conquer series and it's worth searching through.
If you're into chip tunes, then it is also worth checking out Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm really into video game instrumentals. If anyone else is interested, there's a great podcast called Sound of Gaming by BBC radio 3 that is worth going through the back catalogue of episodes.
Super Meat Boy's OST slaps. I decided to check it out after realizing it was from the same guy that made Crypt of the Necrodancers OST.
I then spent hours trying to figure out where I've heard "Hot Damned" before. It was Siivagunner.
Anything Final Fantasy?
That was my first thought but they mentioned FF already.
Oh fuck, I should learn to finish sentences, I’m not sure I can blame this one on my unregulated adhd lmao
Pokémon music. Especially the route themes and battle themes. If I had to list the bangers it would take hours
Maybe try soundtrack from Celeste, Transistor, Gris
Donkey Kong Country, especially 2. From the original, I recommend Aquatic Ambience. But for DKC2, honestly let the OST play. There's so many greats.
Stickerbush Symphony the GOAT. But yes, so many great picks in here.
That's also my top pick!
Persona 5. I have p4 tracks also.
Guild wars 2 has so much variety i would not know where to start. Would just search it on youtube and find the fitting mood i guess.
Jeremy Soule made some soundtracks.
Guild wars 1 and 2, Skyrim ...
I can provide some examples if you are looking for something specific but to list some games that haven't been mentioned yet, there's:
The Touhou games along with the remixes/covers and fan games like the two "Touhouvania" games.
Most of the Castlevania games.
Most of the Sonic games and fan games like Sonic After the Sequel and SRB2.
And to go with something really obscure, Chaos Legion.
Adding on to this to specifically recommend the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 soundtrack. Oscar Araujo did masterful work on this, so much so that I even went out and bought the album, even though it was almost impossible to get my hands on it. But you can listen to it on YouTube.
I was wondering if anyone else enjoyed this soundtrack. I love it!
Stellaris is great sci-fi future ambient music to focus to.
Stellaris has a fine soundtrack, but I found myself vibing way more playing it with FlyByNo's soundtrack for Endless Space. Endless Space didn't have the staying power with me that Stellaris did but that soundtrack is * chef's kiss * .
Transistor
Personally I prefer Bastion soundtrack over Transistor but both a good.
Severed Steel (Chewing Glass Pt 1 and 2 by Floating Door)
BONEWORKS (BONETONES by Michael Wyckoff)
Hotline Miami (various EPs and singles by Various Artists)
Elite: Dangerous (Elite: Dangerous OST by Erasmus Talbot)
Dusk (Dusk OST by Andrew Hulshult)
Amid Evil (Amid Evil OST by Andrew Hulshult)
yussss... solid working music too.
It's great stuff. As a bonus, an artist named Alex Yarmak has put together two albums where he covers the entire OST of each game in a heavy metal style. Great stuff if you like that kind of thing.
I didn't expect to see hulshult up in here along with floating door.
The strafe soundtrack by toytree is also really nice
The Return of the Obra Dinn! Fantastic OST (maritime/sea shanty inspired) and a truly unique game too. https://youtu.be/8qvdAWLcPyU
Lucas Pope is a genius.
Elite Dangerous, both original OST and Odyssey (for the planetside background music)
If you like prog metal and hard rock, I've yet to find a better soundtrack than Guilty Gear XX. The fan favorite is "Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)", but for my money, the best songs on the soundtrack are "Existence" and "Awe of She".
First time I heard this was in a buddy's car and it was bumpin' hard. I asked him who the band was and was totally surprised when he told me it was from a video game. Very very solid stuff v all the way through
Mass Effect 2 and 3 might have what you’re looking for.
Baldur’s Gate 3 as well.
The Ys series OSTs, especially the PSP titles. Nice mix of metal and violin.
Hollow Night. The City of Tears track in particular.
Any covers made by Orchestral Fantasy on YouTube. He focuses mainly on classic 16-bit titles and pretty much nails each one.
I do like symphonic metal, and that's a great song... it gave me goosebumps. I'll be sure to check out more of Blind Guardian's work. Any other suggestions are welcome! Maybe stuff similar to Epica's Omega album, and instrumental pieces similar to Essence of Datum, Mohamed Shawky, Rivers of Nihil, & Naxatras, if you've got the time :D
Thanks a lot for the recommendations! Lots of interesting things here, and I'll be diving in very soon.
Mohamed Shawky goes by 'chusss' on YouTube. here's one I like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h-x0x41dsfM
Yeah, I've heard of Nightwish. Not my favorite, but last time I went looking I was trying to find pieces closer to Epica's Omega album... and not even Epica's older work was what I was looking for...
oh man i have a spotify folder full of playlists, including
talos principle
sherlock holmes chapter one
deadbolt
murder by numbers
baldurs gate 3
witcher 3
but it's missing metroid prime (esp. chozo ruins and phendrana drifts) and professor layton (any of the puzzle themes).
I'm a sucker for a cello. When I'm testing new audio equipment I put on Austin Wintory's soundtrack to Journey. So, so beautiful.
Also love cello, and it's why I keep hoping the long-rumored new version of Final Fantasy Tactics will surface soon. Even with a fifth console gen soundfont, Sakimoto's strings are so good in that soundtrack.
Shovel knight
https://open.spotify.com/album/0mDSPMGVdWORtoEuxhyMJx
FTL
https://open.spotify.com/album/7us4WRnwvqCE3cppHVNjIu
Nothing hits harder then good old Zelda Music! Best of the best in my books ;)
I've been playing so many soundtracks for my background music at work. Of course, nostalgia makes some songs slap harder than they deserve to, so your results may vary, but some of my favorites have been:
Mega Man series
Warcraft (I'm especially fond of Warcraft 2 songs)
Donkey Kong Country series
Variety lists (one hit wonders from games you nearly forgot)
Spotify has a lot of video game playlists, and even some covers in different styles. Right now we're listening to metal versions of classic games.
TUNIC. I also highly recommend the game, it's in my top 5.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
My brother had a string quartet play one of the songs at his wedding. It was so beautiful.
Second on the Octopath Traveler II music. Even my son who is 9 and plays it as well as a ton of other games has only ever commented about how the music is really good on Octopath Traveler and no others (and I had never mentioned this to him). It's definitely the best music I have every heard for a game. There was a glitch one time where the music wasn't playing for some reason and I realized how much the music made the game come to life, NGL, I think it brings like 99% of the emotional engagement to it.
If you like metal... the tracks from 2004 Painkiller rocks.
- little big adventure 2
- sim city 4
- starbound
There was something magical about Little Big Adventure that no game has been able to capture afterwards.
Any of Marty O'Donnell's Halo soundtracks
Any Fromsoft soulsborne game.
Persona 3/4/5 (not all tracks are instrumentals, but most of them are and they are straight bangers)
Katana Zero Danganronpa 1, 2, V3 Silent Hill 1, 2, 3 (all I can vouch for, but I hear the later games still have banging soundtracks) Crosscode Kingdom Hearts 1/2 Nier Automata Minecraft Donkey Kong Country 1/2 VA-11 HALL-A Catherine Full Body Deadbolt Risk of Rain 1/2
Some of these you'd have to sift through, like Silent Hill is one part industrial creepy noise, and one part absolutely incredible hip hop and rock
Lots of Elder Scrolls and Elder Scrolls Online
Lots of Metal Gear stuff
Kingdoms of Amalur
Shadow of the Colossus
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (badass 80s music)
Assassins Creed 3
ATM I love the soundtracks of:
Psychonauts 2. Peter McConnell only got better as the years went by.
Not a game, but you can't go wrong with most of the Ocean's Eleven-Thirteen soundtracks, if you like funky jazzy stuff.
Diablo 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect 1
Non-game instrumental artists:
That nobody mentioned Transport Tycoon Deluxe is criminal. I recommend the live-action version recorded for the mobile release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJy9oCdUns
OpenTTD Downtown Cab Ride is a masterpiece!
How is there not a Single mention of celeste? It is one of the few things that can keep me focussed for hours.
The persona series has some great songs
Doesn't look like anyone listed the Ori soundtracks by Gareth Coker yet, they're amazing. Also can't go wrong with WoW if you're looking for more classic fantasy style.
VVVVVV
Everything by Jeremy Soule. Especially Guild Wars 2 and Skyrim.
Crysis 2
Overwatch
A Hat In Time
Total Annihilation
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters has some great tunes.
Edit: and The Talos Principle
I have listened to Rimworld, Disco Elysium, and EVE Online's soundtrack while working. Though it's probably my emotional attachment to EVE more than anything lol
The Eve Symphonic Orchestra is so good though.
The Dead Cells soundtrack. Especially:
You missed some great ones:
Promanade of the Condemned
Prison Rooftop
Formerly Known as Assassin
The Castle
Hand of the King
The whole soundtrack is one banger after another. The two best are Clocktower and Hand of the King.
There are really no low points in the entire soundtrack. Although, I haven't actually played all of the DLCs, so I might have not even heard all of them.
The Nitronic Rush soundtrack is some really awesome techno. It feels very Tron-esque at times.
Minecraft
Shadow of the Colossus OST https://youtu.be/57jIlw6HmCE?si=Lf3pXvLo7vT1DAeB
Total Annihilation
The Battlefield V soundtrack is pretty great, in my opinion.
BF1 also has a really great soundtrack made by the same people.
Thomas was alone OST is superb.
No-one has suggested Baldur's Gate 3?
Spiritfarer has an excellent soundtrack, which is utterly wasted on such a mediocre game.
As an added bonus, some of the tracks on the OST are longer than you'll ever experience in game because they cut them short for some reason.
Shenmue: Orchestral Soundtrack
Neotokyo Soundtrack
Those are my favourites but I'll also put something different here too,
Jet Set Radio Live
Overall, Surviving Mars might be my favorite work soundtrack. Assorted tracks from Stellaris plus the Age of Wonders and Civilization series are also good. Something about the soundtracks in 4X games and games like them always puts me in a productive mood while not making me emotional and thus distracted like RPG soundtracks can sometimes.
Since you like FF, I'd suggest looking into Uematsu's other works as well, especially Lost Odyssey. For similar ones in the genre, there's also Yasunori Mitsuda's work in the Chrono and Xeno series.
I know it's a little obscure, but if you like Kamen Rider and ancient games, the music from this game is awesome
I prefer Sci-fi background noise so Surviving Mars is my favorite. Mass Effect is ok but I find it gets a little too cinematic and bombastic at times. FTL and Into The Breach, or really anything by Ben Prunty is good too
Loop Hero
The Forest
Strafe
Kingdom: Classic
XCOM 2 Legacy Soundtrack. Some darned good beats on there.
Can't go wrong with pretty much any pre-Skyward Sword Zelda. SS itself also has Ballad of the Goddess, which was good, but I can't remember any other tunes from it or BOTW that aren't just reprises of tracks from previous games.
Stellaris. Absolutely fantastic.
Cloudpunk OST for a Blade Runner vibe.
Portal / Portal 2
"Science Is Fun" is a great track, as are the end songs "Still Alive" and "I Want You Gone".
My favorite soundtrack ever, of course, is that of The Secret of Monkey Island (MT-32) by Michael Land. A lot of nostalgia there.
I also very much like the soundtrack to Dune by Stephane Picq. There's an edition that combines the Adlib, Adlib Gold, and MT-32 versions which is "chef's kiss". Alternatively, I can recommend the Space Opera edition.
Strike Commander by Nenad Vugrinec on MT-32 is also great.
For chiptunes, I really liked Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 by Alex Mauer.
Or, for a real classic, Earthbound by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka.
Yes, I have a bit of a thing for retro sounds. 😁
Portal 2, Minecraft, Half Life 2, Black Mesa, Team Fortress 2, Battle Block Theatre, Doom 2016, Doom Eternal,...
@MacedWindow Diablo 2 for sure
There's a lack of Ace Combat in this thread so I'm going to single out 7's but they're all pretty good.
Also Redout has a soundtrack to spike your heartrate
I liked the music in La-Mulana 1&2.
Need for Speed 3 -- the original hot pursuit has an amazing techno and rock soundtrack.
GTA V has an awesome soundtrack (listen to the original score, not the music they licensed)
The very first Hitman and Hitman Contracts had some killer techno/electronic soundtracks.
Any of these are great to play in the background while you work.
Rise of Nations soundtrack is fantastic sandis the only "video game music" that I semi-regularly listen to.
Especially check out "High Strung" that would always play in multiplayer whenever a player dropped a nuke on another player.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL829D6AF91A5C465E&si=yvPeVG9kuDx71mZb
Subnautica has a long and beautiful OST. It's been a long-time favorite of mine, and just a great instrumental jam to fuel my creativity lately. Stardew has my other favorite game soundtrack!
Wh40k: Mechanicus has some amazing music.
Ultrakill has some bangers, didn't even play the game Injust stumbled on the OST.
The Witcher 3, I love BANANA TIGER.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2.
No Man's Sky
Lost Ember
Gris
Deep Rock Galactic
Route 96
Cyberpunk 2077
So so so many more
Tropico 3
Child of light
starfield the game is divisive to say the least, but i cant imagine anyone would talk bad about the soundtrack. inon zur's best work so far, and the death metal songs in there are fucking awesome too
I would suggest "quake 2", it's rock /metal and put me in a good mood when I work. Now if you like instrumental metal, it's no game music, but I would suggest Aephenemer (their official instrumental playlist is on YouTube).
Civilization Beyond Earth and Battletech have marvelous soundtracks
Offworld Trading Company. Haven't played the game but it's a great sci-fi soundtrack by Christopher Tin of Civ IV fame.
Fire Emblem Fates, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, and Ocarina of Time are some of my favorite Soundtracks in my library
Since you already mentioned Final Fantasy (I assume that's FF).
Halo 2
Nier:Automata
Undertale
Lost Odyssey, Fantasian, Halo 1, Desperados 3, Arcanum, Pillars of Eternity, and Bastion are pretty good to listen to when trying to focus.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a music focused game and god damn but it is funky. State of Mind and Condensed Milk are my favorites but the range is wide and excellent. No two songs really share the same style.
If you're a metalhead, Metal: Hellsinger won a bunch of best music awards with such offerings as Stygia and This Devastation. It's not instrumental, but it's worth a listen and if you like what you hear it's worth a play as well. Think if Doom was a rhythm game.
Generally speaking, all of the Persona soundtracks are also top tier ambient chill tracks, especially so if you've actually played the games and have an emotional connection to these songs like myself. Persona 5 is a little more generally upbeat but I like it the best, but P4 and P3 have plenty of low key jazzfunk. I don't have specifics to recommend here but know that all three of the P3/4/5 soundtracks come with my seal of approval. EDIT: I have specifics to recommend here. Persona 5 - Rivers in the Desert Persona 4 - The Poem for Everyone's Souls ( <- This one appears in all three games with minor differences and is close to what I expect you're actually looking for from this thread) Persona 3 - Living With Determination
Orchestral my pick is Journey, with Uncharted as a close second
Actiony my pick is Scott Pilgrim vs The World The Game. Love the band.
Retro - Chrono Trigger/Spyro 1-3/Pokemon Ruby Sapphire Emerald.
Hyperlight Drifter - disasterpeace
Fez - disasterpeace
Scott pilgrim vs the world - anamanaguchi
FAR: Lone Sails
What Remains of Edith Finch
Divinity II: Original Sin
Frostpunk
These are all (mostly) non-vocal, great for some background noise. Great games too!
Endless Legend OST
RimWorld
Look at all these normie answers, and no one mentioning Minit. https://invidious.private.coffee/watch?v=zRIRyK2pHh8&listen=1