Design and implementation of a non-linear symphonic soundtrack of a video game

ABSTRACT The music in the contemporary video games is often interactive. The music playback is based on transitions between pieces of available music material. These transitions happen in response to evolving gameplay. This paradigm is referred to as the adaptive music. Our challenge was to design, create, and implement the soundtrack of the upcoming video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Our soundtrack is a collection of compositions with symphonic orchestration. Per our design decision, our intention was to implement the adaptive music in a way which respected the nature of the orchestral film score. We created our own adaptive music middleware, called Sequence Music Engine, implementing a high-level music logic as well as the low-level playback infrastructure. Our system can handle hours of video game music, helps maintain the relevance of the music throughout the video game, and minimises the repetitiveness of the individual pieces.