When I was a freshman in high school in 1994, I huddled over a flickering CRT TV tensely gripping a Super Nintendo controller as my heart pounded. I had just discovered a game called Super Metroid. After hours of exploring a dark and foreboding alien world filled with what appeared to be mysterious dead ends, I felt an exhilarating awe as I finally gained a new skill that suddenly unlocked a new area of the map. I did not realize at the time I was playing one of the defining games in what would become a foundational genre: “Metroidvania” (a combination of two pioneers in the genre, Metroid and Castlevania).
Last February, Sony PlayStation announced and released in this very genre. God of War Sons of Sparta is a new game in the beloved franchise that I have been honored to contribute to for more than a decade.
The game’s story is set in the teenage years of series protagonist Kratos, chronicling his first adventure with his brother Deimos. Sons of Sparta features 2D hand-drawn pixel art with a gameplay loop focused on combat and exploration of an increasingly vast map. As composer for the game, I was thrilled to write music in the style of these classic games that helped shape my youth.
NEW SOUNDS FOR NEW WORLDS
Shortly after finishing work on God of War, God of War Ragnarök, and its follow-up game, Valhalla, I heard from my friends at Santa Monica Studio that they were joining forces with celebrated retro-game developers Mega Cat Studios to make a 2D God of War game. I told them I had to be involved! When I saw the early concept art and story proposals, my imagination fired on all cylinders, but one glaring question struck me immediately: what should this score sound like?
Because the story of Sons of Sparta explored a new chapter of Kratos’s youth in Greece, with a new art style and gameplay mechanics, I knew my score would require new sounds beyond the orchestral, choral, and Nordic folk colors that had dominated my music to God of War (2018) and its sequel, God of War Ragnarök.
As I set out, I decided on three musical genres from which I wanted to draw influence: retro video game console synths, ancient Greek folk music, and modern, cinematic orchestra. But, how was I to blend these completely distinct styles?
A QUICK HISTORY OF VIDEO GAME MUSIC
First, for some necessary context, a quick primer on the history of video game music. In the earliest days of the medium, the 1970s to the early 1980s, video game music was relegated to the primitive bleeps and bloops of pioneering games like Pong or Pac-Man. There was almost no music to speak of. In the mid-1980s, however, the explosive success of the Nintendo Entertainment System propagated a technology that allowed for more sophisticated compositions. Many of these melodies composed for this era’s games, including Super Mario Bros, Mega Man or Final Fantasy games, remain beloved to this very day. These compositions proved that all game composers needed to write iconic music was a handful of noise generators running on consumer electronics.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, video game consoles got better. Their advancements and their limitations ensured each console had their own definitive sound. The FM-synthesis chips on a SEGA Genesis console gave Sonic the Hedgehog games a completely different timbre than the more detailed tones emanating from the Super Nintendo, in games like Chrono Trigger. CD drive technology, launched most successfully by Sony’s groundbreaking PlayStation console, revolutionized the idea of game music by making it substantially easier to play back pre-recorded audio instead of relying solely on synthesis emanating from internal hardware.
Ironically, by the early 2000s, gaming technology reached the point where game music could essentially compete toe-to-toe with film and television in terms of production quality. While this technological development yielded some of the medium’s most iconic compositions (who doesn’t love the gorgeous lead vocal in the title song in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater?), it marked the end of the era in which a console had a specific sound associated with it, imposed not by the musical tastes of the era, but by the physical hardware running the game.
RETRO SYNTHS
Why do I bring all this up? Because I was born in 1979. I came of age right as every video game console on the market had its own unmistakable musical thumbprint. Sons of Sparta was drawn and animated in the classic 1990s style of games like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, so my music needed to reflect the tones of games from that era, at least in part. I wanted to write a love letter to the classic video game sounds of my youth. The primary sounds I wanted to use were drawn from four classic consoles.
1. Nintendo Entertainment System (1985). This revolutionary hardware had five tone generators that could create a limited variety of sounds, including white noise, and square, triangle, and sine waves. My memory of the NES was filled with scrappy drum beats, evocative melodies and fuzzy bass tones.
2. SEGA Genesis (1989). In an effort to upstage the NES, SEGA released this system capable of emulating the type of FM synthesis that permeated 1980s popular music. Anybody who’s ever played a Genesis game knows that sound, and either loves it or hates it.
3. Super Nintendo (1990). The SNES contained more advanced synthesis technology that allowed it to replicate modern synths beyond any gaming console that had come before. When I fired up Super Star Wars or Final Fantasy III, I swore I was hearing real French horns. Though they sound dated now, they were incredibly impressive for the time.
4. Sony PlayStation (1994). This console’s advanced musical engine created the sound of the 1990s for an entire generation. This system’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night alone was so influential that it helped spawn the entire genre for Sons of Sparta, so I knew I needed to bring these colors as well.
While I was mixing and matching these various sounds I felt like a kid again, as every sound flooded my mind with fond memories of the video games of my youth. I’d grab an iconic slap bass evocative of Mega Man X, a synth mallet that reminded me of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and merge them with a synth oboe that took me right back to the opening credits of Final Fantasy III. Throw in some scratchy 8-bit high hats right out of Mega Man II and some military snare drums inspired by Shining Force for good measure. I was in retro game music heaven. (I’ve been passionate about retro game sounds for years and have explored them in previous blog entries for project such as The Angry Video Game Nerd, Dark Void, SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals, Eureka, and on my 2024 debut rock album, The Singularity.)
THE SOUNDS OF ANCIENT GREECE
Because the game takes place during Kratos’s youth in Sparta, I felt the sounds of Greece needed to stand alongside the retro synths. Though little is known for certain about the music of the ancient world, there are a few instruments and performance practices that scholars today know existed, and I hoped to bring these sounds to Sons of Sparta.
The aulos is a classic Greek woodwind instrument, which is even referenced within the game’s narrative. I loved to channel its mysterious polyphonic sound into my writing. I was excited to work with a talented player named Callum Armstrong, who brought an inspiring, authentic sound to the score. On occasion, I needed pitches that were simply outside the capacity of the instrument, so I also wrote for the Armenian duduk, an expressive folk instrument I’ve used in scores for my entire career, ranging from Battlestar Galactica to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Plucked and strummed instruments are another staple of Greek music. For Sons of Sparta, I wrote for a small, plucked harp-like instrument called a kithara and was fortunate to work with two knowledgeable performers, Theodore Koumartzis and Lina Palera. For passages where I wanted to push the kithara’s boundaries, I blended it with strange harp sounds from my retro console sound library, and the combination worked surprisingly well, as in the song “Sparta.”
Perhaps my favorite Greek instrument is the lute-like bouzouki, and I was excited to write some intense for the instrument, for tracks like “Mount Taygetos” and “Port of Messenia.” For these solos, I collaborated with a marvelous player, Bryan Winslow. I also found that doubling his performances with nasty retro game console synth guitars created a uniquely fantastic color!
My frequent collaborators Andrew Synowiec and Omer Ben-Zvi also contributed significant guitar performances to the score as well, which helped add a sense of jangly Mediterranean authenticity,. I also represented the sounds of the region by leaning heavily on hand percussion, including frame drums, tambourine drums, and finger cymbals.
I leaned on two other soloists throughout the score. Paul Cartwright’s electric violin appears in passages where I wanted the electronic and acoustic colors to blend seamlessly. Paul has been a staple of my scores ever since the early days of Battlestar Galactica and Outlander, so I knew I could count on him to bridge the gap between the acoustic Greek soloists and the electronic retro synthesis. (Fans will hear his electric violin again in the upcoming God of War Laufey!) I also wrote evocative cello solos for one of my favorite cellists, Eric Byers, who has leant his talents to countless scores of mine in the past, most notably The Professor and the Madman and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Perhaps the game’s most moving and impactful instrumental solo involves a melody performed on a simple wooden flute. Though not specific to Greece, this type of flute developed in nearly every culture around the world, and fits perfectly with the kithara, aulos, and bouzouki. (I don’t want to spoil this moment since it comes later in the narrative, but if you know the flute solo I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about!)
EPIC ORCHESTRA
After retro console colors and Greek instrumentation, the third category of musical colors I wanted to write with was that of large ensemble symphonic orchestra and choir. This type of muscular cinematic writing has been a part of God of War from the beginning. I love to write blaring French horn lines that cut through rippling layers of orchestral strings, while a choir sustains powerful chords. Some of my favorite passages in this score showcase richly cinematic orchestrations, notably “Sons of Sparta,” “For the Glory of Sparta,” “Eurotas River,” and “Laconian Woods.”
Even though the game’s retro-styled pixel art could have meant the score only featured similarly retro sounds, I knew that live musicians would provide the added emotional depth needed to support the moving coming-of-age story at the heart of Sons of Sparta. These are the sounds that give the score its depth and scale.
BALANCING THE COLORS
With retro gaming synths, Greek instruments, and large ensembles at my fingertips, I finally faced the daunting task of weaving them all into a single, cohesive score. Experiments in musical balance were my primary focus for my first few weeks of composing. I enjoyed writing with the retro synth sounds, but when I paired them with live strings or Greek soloists, frequencies gnawed away at each other, often resulting in a combination less than the sum of its parts. My task was clearly not as simple as layering a bunch of great sounding parts together, because each color needed enough space to shine.
My philosophy for Sons of Sparta needed to be about shifting focus between these sonic families. Some passages could focus on one or two colors, but I could only use all three at once for the most epic and dense phrases. Sometimes I would let entire cues focus on a single color, and other times, I would oscillate rapidly between sounds over the course of a couple bars. As long as I knew what sound I wanted the listener to perceive as the most dominant, I could make the balance work.
NEW THEME FOR KRATOS
My approach for scoring any God of War game begins by establishing the main theme. I knew Sons of Sparta needed a new one. Here, I was tasked with telling a story in Kratos’s life long before the events of either the Greek or Norse sagas, so using a theme from a previous game would not make sense. Because the game is built around a framing device where an adult Kratos recounts the tale of his adventures to his young daughter, Calliope, I wanted to capture a sense of wistful nostalgia even in an adventurous, epic main theme. I wrote a melody that permeates the score, making significant appearances in nearly every track, ranging from delicate harp solos to rousing, orchestral anthems.
For the best example of the theme, listen to “Sons of Sparta,” from the soundtrack album. The theme starts with a simple ostinato, performed by SEGA-Genesis-inspired harp plucks emulating a Greek kithara:
Then, an 8-bit Nintendo-style sine wave offers the main melody:
For this first statement of the theme, I was inspired by the emotional music from the finales of classic games like Mega Man II, Mega Man IV and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. That homage evolves when Greek instrumentation joins the retro sounds. Frame drums and tambourine drums provide a wide, pounding rhythm while male choir tones gently rise.
The main theme returns again, this time in an electric violin, played by Paul Cartwright. After a gentle B Theme, the music modulates into a powerful ostinato, this time accompanied by a blistering bouzouki line, before the full orchestra and choir merge with the Greek instruments and retro synths for a final, epic statement of the theme. My hope is that the entire emotional arc of Sons of Sparta can be experienced listening to this single song.
NEW THEMES FOR NEW PLACES
The main theme was the launch point. In keeping with classic video game tradition, I was inspired to write for every level a unique, memorable theme. The following themes are just a few of my favorites.
The Mount Taygetos Theme, with its propulsive motor and soaring melody, almost sounds like it could be the main theme. As a matter of fact, it actually was my first draft for the main theme! Even though its badass melody captured the adventurous spirit of the story, it fundamentally lacked the emotional depth required of a theme for these two brothers. So, I wrote a new main theme and repurposed this one for Mount Taygetos, one of the game’s most sprawling areas.
(There is a precedent for swapping Main Theme ideas in my God of War scores. The humming theme sung by Eivør that represented Faye’s character throughout God of War was originally composed as my first draft of Kratos’ theme, before it was scrapped and ultimately reborn as the theme for his wife, Faye. The melody then represented her character across two games and will continue to evolve in the forthcoming God of Way Laufey.)
The Sparta Theme offered me a chance to score Kratos’ home life. Greek kithara strums gently support stoic woodwind solos. I smiled as I wrote this, thinking about all the various permutations of “happy village” music I heard in so many games I grew up, including Shining Force, Chrono Trigger, and The Legend of Zelda. This theme is as close as I’ve ever come to writing one of those!
The Euratos River theme was written for another of the map’s largest areas, one in which I knew the player would invest a lot of time. I wanted to write a theme imbued with both mystery and adventure. Here, chanting ancient Greek choirs offer hints to the boys’ Spartan heritage.
A handful of my other favorites include “Port of Messina,” “Laconian Woods,” “Passage of Monuments,” and “Oenus Vineyard.” (I want to give special thanks to a few of my talented composers at Sparks & Shadows who contributed additional music to this collection of themes, Omer Ben-Zvi, Pierre-André Rigoll, and Peter Kohrman.)
“BROTHERHOOD”
Speaking of collaborations with talented writers, I was thrilled to jam with my friend Logic, on a new song called “Brotherhood,” for the game’s end credits. He and I met and worked together on Kevin Smith’s coming-of-age comedy The 4:30 Movie, on the Queen-inspired track “Astroblaster and the Beaver Men.” Since then, we’ve been looking for another opportunity to collaborate. I’ve always admired his lyrics, and I felt that the emotional story at the core of Sons of Sparta would provide a perfect canvas. Logic brought his skills as a rapper, lyricist and producer and we merged them with my score’s beats and melodies to create a unique song to end this chapter of Kratos’s saga.
I had the chorus to this song stuck in my head for weeks, but the longer we worked on it, this passage from the second verse really stood out to me.
Me and my vanguard
Vanquish anyone that stand guard
We making it clear
Nothing but his shield and his spear
It’s no fear
Tryna make it out without a doubt
Beyond the clout
Beyond the people that talk but don’t really know what it’s about
It’s a brotherhood
We move as a unit like no other could
No you can’t understand where I stood
When I first started writing the music for the God of War saga more than a decade ago I never would have guessed the franchise would one day let me co-write and co-produce a hip-hop song with one of my favorite rappers! And Logic’s lyrics were far from the only lyrics in the score.
ANCIENT WORDS
The most effective way to channel a culture’s music into a score is to literally use their language. For Sons of Sparta, I wanted to hear a full choir singing original text in ancient Greek. My team at Sparks & Shadows and I worked closely with the narrative teams at Mega Cat and Santa Monica Studio to generate original poems for each level. These texts were then translated into ancient Greek by Armand D’Angour, professor of Classical Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, before being performed by full choir.
As I detailed in my blog entry “The Lyrics to God of War,” writing and translating original lyrics into an ancient language adds a tremendous workload to the scoring and development teams, all to add meaning that will be absorbed only subliminally by the vast majority of the audience. It is a testament to the passion felt by everyone involved that these lyrics exist. We all agreed that adding original text to the score would heighten the audience’s experience, even if they don’t understand the direct translation.
Here are a few of my favorite lyrics for choral passages in Sons of Sparta, in both the original English and their ancient Greek translations in which they are sung in the score.
“Sons of Sparta”
| Honor! Duty! The echo of Valor, through Time shall resound To abandon a Spartan, to leave him behind We fight not for ourselves, in this we have sworn | Time! Kathekon! hē d’ aretē dia khronou ēkhēsei, Spartiātēn men apoleipein oukh hüper hēmōn autōn polemoumenn, touto gar ōmosamen |
“For the Glory of Sparta”
| Charon calls Elysium waits With courage, we fight Off your back With or on your shield | ho Charõn kalei to men gar Ēlysion anamenei met’ aretēs machometha Ek tou sou nōtou meta tēs aspidos ē epi tēn |
“Eurotas River”
| Eurotas, wide and long Guide us home to Spartan land, Great Eurotas What lies in wait, what curses be Eurotas, lifeblood to the brave and bold Please hear our prayer | Eurōtā, ō potame platus te kai polus hupagag’ hēmās eis tēn tēs Spartēs gēn poreuomenous, tina men ellocheuei, tina de katārōn genoito Eurōtā, tō gennaiō lāō zōēn parekheis eukhās eisakousaton. |
“Sparta”
| A Spartan’s life is his brother’s shield The Agoge’s grounds, are where young bodies are made | La-kōnos bios aspis esti tou adelphou. hē tēs Agōgēs palaistra sōmata tōn neōn poiei |
“Mount Taygetos”
| Soldiers, Spartans! (Men from Sparta)! To their death, Guarding Sparta Ares Soldiers, Spartans! (Men from Sparta)! Courage Ah! We Fight! Soldiers Stand in Rows Lend us strength, to cope, to dare Boy’s, warrior’s pace Spartan! | Stratiōtai Lakedaimonioi mekhri thanatou, phrouroi Spartēs Arēs Stratiōtai Lakedaimonioi Hē d’aretē Ah! Machometha Stratiōtai en taxei diatetagmenoi eisin dos hēmīn alkēn hōst’ hupomenein te kai tolmān paidos stratiōtikou badismatos Spartiātēn! |
“Oenus Vineyard”
| In Sparta’s shadow, long forgotten, an eerie vineyard stands Abandoned, cursed by whispered hex Terrible, Abandoned The vineyard’s tales are left untold In Sparta’s shadow, long forgotten, an eerie vineyard stands The barrels rot, the goblets crack, no mortals dare take sip Vine | en tē tēs Spartēs skiā ampelōn deinos kai dēn agnōstos keitai erēmōtheis kai kataratos Deinos, Eremotheis hoi mÿthoi tou ampelōnos agnoountai en tē tēs Spartēs skiā ampelōn deinos kai dēn agnōstos keitai hoi de pithoi sapizousi kai ta potēria süntribetai, kai oudeis thnētos tolmā geusasthai Ampelos |
“Laconian Woods”
| Mighty pines like spears Stirred by Artemis’ breath Artemis In Laconian forests deep, where nature’s face deceives | ischÿroi pitües hōsper dorata hüpo pnoēs Artemidos kīnoumena Artemidos En drÿmois Lakōnikois bathesin, entha phüsis exapatā |
“The Grand Cistern”
| Your waters clear, your currents cold Yet through the pain, it guides the way | hē dīnē sou psÿkhrā, hai rhoai sou katharai dia tēs lÿpēs hēmās hodēgei |
“Always United”
| Black Death Its roar a thunderclap in the looming dark Jagged claws rend flesh, stone. Heralds the arrival of Fate’s cruel joke Black Death | melās thanatos boã d’hōste keraunos en tō auxanomenō skotō Oxythēktoi d’onüches temnousi sarka, lithon. proangellei to tēs Moirās sklēron skōmma melās thanatos |
FINISHING THE SCORE
After all the music had been written, approved, orchestrated and recorded, it was mixed. For this crucial step, I turned to one of my favorite mixers, Forrester Savell. Forrester and I have worked together on my two rock albums, The Singularity and The Singularity: Ekleipsis. I knew from these experiences he would be able to not only make sense of all these crazy musical layers, but imbue the music with a modern, punchy sound. As always, he did not disappoint. Indeed, he elevated the material beyond my wildest hopes.
Once Forrester’s mixes were complete, we delivered them in dozens of split layers to the developers for integration into the game. For the technical work behind the music of Sons of Sparta, my team at Sparks & Shadows and I were excited to work with Mega Cat’s audio team, Alain Godornes and Erin Lee, who brought to the project their considerable experience with retro games, as well as Sonia Coronado, one of the talented developers from God of War Ragnarök. Together, they integrated the music into the various levels and boss battles across the game, using a modern system similar to the one we employed on God of War Ragnarök.
It takes a coordinated effort from multiple teams to create a score like God of War Sons of Sparta, and I want to take this opportunity to thank some people without whom this score could not exist. Special thanks go out to my assistant Marisa Gunzenhauser, my album co-producer Joe Augustine, my mixer and mastering engineer Forrester Savell, recording engineers Patrik Veréb, Dénes Rédly, and Viktor Szabó, additional engineers Gerald Klöpfer, Yannis Mavridis, Ryan Sanchez, and Ben Sedano, my project manager Pierre-André Rigoll, scoring coordinator Reed Trachy, album coordinators Liam McIntyre and Gabrielle Fastman, our orchestrators Edward Trybek, Henri Wilkinson, and Jonathan Beard, assistant orchestrators Benjamin Hoff, Jamie Thierman, and Sean Barrett, copyists Andrew Harris and Matthew Carlton, our orchestral conductors Ábel Tompa, Péter Illényi, and Zoltán Pad, and our choir conductor Péter Illényi.
I would also like to thank all the talented performers and singers who brought this score to life, as well as Eric Williams, Jeff Ketcham, Cory Barlog, and the entire crew at Santa Monica Studio and to Zack Manko and everyone at Mega Cat Studios, and my entire team at Sparks & Shadows, for their steadfast and tireless support. Last but not least, thanks are due to Richard Kraft, Laura Engel, Jonathan Clark, and everybody at Kraft Engel Management for all their help.
PLAYING GAMES
When I finally had the chance to play through Sons of Sparta after its release, I was moved to hear all our efforts pay off. As I controlled young Kratos moving from biome to biome, picking up new moves and facing down new enemies, I gripped the controller with the same intensity as I had as a boy when I first explored the dark, sprawling caverns of Super Metroid. Back then, when I was blown away by this new genre of video game, I would have been shocked to learn that three decades later I would write the music for new game in that very genre. Unlike playing games a kid, however, my run through Sons of Sparta was unique – this time, it was accompanied by my own music! I smiled hearing those classic video game console sounds, ancient Greek instruments, and live orchestra and choir blending together into one of the most unique scores in the God of War saga.
My time on Sons of Sparta is complete, and I’m thankful for the experience. I will have a lot more to talk about as the God of War saga unfolds in the future, so stay tuned here and on my social media for updates. As always, thank you all for reading, for listening, for playing.
Cheers!
-Bear
