It should come as no surprise that video game scores and soundtracks are often exceptional. They can move you, inspire you, or just be downright excellent to chill out or bop to, outside of the game itself. This year, Australia’s national broadcaster is putting the call out for the country to identify their favourite video game tracks, as part ABC Classic’s ‘Classic 100: Music for the Screen‘ event.
Much like Australian youth radio station Triple J ranks the country’s favourite tracks of each year in a Hottest 100 listener poll, ABC Classic is this year doing a Classic 100 focused solely on film, TV, and video game music.
The station is no stranger to video game music, with a weekly show dedicated to it, the Game Show, every Friday at 3:00 pm AEST.
Read: Black metal and cigar boxes: Composing the score of Assassin’s Creed: Dawn of Ragnarok
You can cast your votes on the Classic 100 website, where you’re allowed 10 submissions in total. The selections on offer are comprised of complete series scores, as well as those of individual titles.
Here are just some highlights of what they’ve got listed, to give you an idea of the breadth of the video game representation:
- A PLAGUE TALE: INNOCENCE – Deriviere, Olivier
- ASSASSIN’S CREED 2 – Kyd, Jesper
- ASSASSIN’S CREED SYNDICATE – Wintory, Austin
- ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY – The Flight
- ABZÛ – Wintory, Austin
- AGE OF EMPIRES – Various
- BATTLETECH – Everist, Jon
- BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT – Arundel, Nick | Buckley, David
- BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY – Arundel, Nick | Fish, Ron
- BIOSHOCK SERIES – Schyman, Garry
- CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE – Schachner, Sarah
- CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 – Zimmer, Hans | Balfe, Lorne
- CASTLEVANIA SERIES – Yamashita, Kinuyo | Yamane, Michiru |Terashima, Satoe | Matsubara, Kenichi
- CELESTE – Raine, Lena
- CHRONO TRIGGER – Mitsuda, Yasunori | Uematsu, Nobuo
- CHRONO CROSS – Mitsuda, Yasunori
- CIVILIZATION IV | CIVILIZATION VI – Tin, Christopher
- CHILD OF LIGHT – Martin, Béatrice
- DESTINY SERIES – O’Donnell, Martin et al.
- DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN – Pokrovsky, Kirill | Slavov, Borislav
- ELDEN RING – Kitamura, Yuka | Saitoh, Tsukasa
- EVERYBODY’S GONE TO THE RAPTURE – Curry, Jessica
- FALLOUT SERIES – Morgan, Mark | Zur, Inon
- FINAL FANTASY SERIES – Uematsu, Nobuo
- FLOWER – Diamante, Vincent
- FROG DETECTIVE SERIES – Golding, Dan
- GHOST OF TSUSHIMA – Eshkeri, Ilan
- GRIM FANDANGO – McConnell, Peter
- HALO SERIES – O’Donnell, Martin | Salvatori, Michael
- HAND OF FATE SERIES – van Dyck, Jeff | Various
- HITMAN – Kyd, Jesper | Nielsen, Niels Bye
- HORIZON SERIES – de Man, Joris | The Flight
- JOURNEY – Wintory, Austin
- KINGDOM HEARTS SERIES – Shimomura, Yoko
- THE LAST GUARDIAN – Furukawa, Takeshi
- THE LAST OF US – Santaolalla, Gustavo
- THE LEGEND OF ZELDA – Kondo, Koji
- THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MAJORA’S MASK – Kondo, Koji
- THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME – Kondo, Koji
- THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER – Various
- MASS EFFECT SERIES – Various
- METAL GEAR SERIES – Various
- METROID SERIES – Yamamoto, Kenji | Various
- MINECRAFT – C418 | Raine, Lena
- POKÉMON – Various
- PORTAL – Morasky, Mike
- THE SIMS SERIES – Martin, Jerry | Russo, Marc
- SLAY THE SPIRE – Aboud, Clark
- SONIC THE HEDGEHOG – Nakamura, Masato
- SUPER MARIO SERIES – Kondo, Koji
- TELLING LIES – Desai, Nainita
- UNCHARTED SERIES – Edmonson, Greg | Jackman, Henry
- UNTITLED GOOSE GAME – Debussy, Claude | Golding, Dan
- UNPACKING – van Dyck, Jeff
- UNRAVEL – Johansson, Frida | Oja, Henrik
- THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT (GAME 2015) – Przybyłowicz, Marcin | Stroiński, Mikołaj
- WORLD OF WARCRAFT SERIES – Various
As you can see, there are plenty of legendary international composers on there, as well as local Australian favourites including titles like Untitled Goose Game, Unpacking, and Frog Detective.
Voting for the Classic 100: Music for the Screen closes on Monday 6 June 2022. The results will be broadcast on ABC Classic the following weekend, 11-12 June 2022. We’ll be listening in anticipation to see which video game pieces make the cut.
