Greetings fellow demon hunters! I’m the Sound Director and Chief Creative Officer at Grasshopper Manufacture. Some people may know me from my work on the Silent Hill series, but today I’m here to talk about our latest game — Shadows of the Damned, out now on the PS3.

Music plays an incredibly important role in setting the atmosphere for games, and it’s especially vital in an action-horror game like Shadows of the Damned. When scoring Damned, I tried to imagine tracks that would bring Hell to life for the player and the lead character Garcia. Designing music isn’t always the most transparent task, so in this blog post I want to explain my thoughts behind the creation of a few tracks included in the pre-order bonus soundtrack.

Broken Dreams

You could say I created this track to be the title song for Shadows of the Damned. Originally, I had planned to make it a duet, as sort of a theme for the two lovers: Garcia and Paula. I wanted to match the heavy, aggressive sound to the game world with Paula and Garcia at the center. I never thought that the game´s genre had anything to do with it, never made it sound the way it is just because it´s an action game. It´s a long song – over seven minutes – but you can think of it as a compressed version of the experience you´ll have playing the game and venturing into its hellish world.

I used a special seven-string guitar to get the sinking sound. I think you´ll get a heavier impression from this than you are used to hearing from a guitar.

Gdrive

This song was made for the scene at the beginning of the game when Garcia is riding the bike. It´s not an interactive section, but I wanted the song to give the impression of rushing along at high speed. I suppose it´s an easy musical style to understand. By putting this music in the game, I wanted to create the player to feel like a motorcycle section could start at any second.

Flash 01

When I first saw the artwork being used for the game, Jan Švankmajer immediately came to mind. Then I began to think of the streets of the Czech Republic. It differs from the world you experience in the game, but I imagined Czech animation I used to watch a lot when creating this song. No matter the musical style, if I work on music for a game, I want to surprise the players with a new experience beyond any they´ve played before, even those works I´ve been associated with. I think that thought process is apparent in this music.

Thanks for reading! I want to thank everyone for the feedback we’ve been getting on Twitter, Facebook, and forums all over the Internet. We’re both proud and humbled by the fan comments. We’re currently working on a limited edition Shadows of the Damned Official soundtrack. Please look for it this Summer!

Also, Play For Japan: The Album, an industry wide charity album featuring composers like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, and Sean Murray, will be available for digital download through Amazon and iTunes next week! All proceeds go to help earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan.

In my 20 years in the industry, I have never had an experience like the one working on Shadows of the Damned. First off, I spent the majority of last year living in Japan and onsite with the developer; Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture. It was a great experience living in Tokyo and working alongside the great team at Grasshopper Manufacture.

The concept of light and dark as a metaphor for good and evil is an old one, but the Light and Dark gameplay in Shadows of the Damned takes it to a whole new level. It is less literal, but rather metaphorical, in the pain and torment that is caused to our hero. As for gameplay, the player should not take the approach of “shoot anything that moves”. Each environment and enemy will require a thoughtful approach in order to progress. Usually, darkness is lethal to the player, but sometimes may be required in order to expose an enemy’s weakness. Each situation is different and the player must build upon the earlier concepts encountered in order to defeat the tougher enemies deeper in the game. Shadows of the Damned is the thinking man’s shooter.

With regards to the story, our hero must find the love of his life, Paula, who has been taken from him by the lord of demons in retribution for killing his minions. Garcia Hotspur is a demon hunter by trade, but must now travel through Hell in search of his beloved, the most important thing in his life.

In the traditional view of Hell, sinners suffer punishment in body and soul for eternity resulting in everlasting punishment for the damned. Conversely, Suda51’s metaphorically twisted vision is Hell is a place where suffering is more mental than physical. It is a place where our hero must endure his trials of torment and can one day leave if deemed worthy. Suda’s version of Hell envisions the player passing through several tests and in doing so, purges and refines our hero, so that someday, when he finds his true love and defeats the lord of demons, he will be allowed to return from hell. If he fails, it will consume them permanently.

There are many interesting aspects in Shadows of the Damned, and we are really excited for the game to launch so our PS3 gans can enjoy it as much as we did making it. Until then, enjoy some of these PlayStation exclusive screenshots from the game!