If you had to describe the musical style of Star Citizen, what is Star Citizen music versus what isn't? Would country have a place in Star Citizen? How would you explain the vibe of Star Citizen to other composers if you had them on the team?
TL;DRHe hopes space stays lush, modernized-John-Williams-style orchestral, with locations adding more hybrid and alien elements and action cues going modern; he says the Pyro system should probably feel different, less orchestral.
I know exactly what I try to do, in a very simple way, though of course it always depends on the people who are in charge and what they want. Remember that the composer is not free to do whatever he wants in any project at all. He has a hierarchy of people that need to say, OK, we move on to the next phase. What I feel Star Citizen is the most is space. I've been more and more focused on locations that are planetary based, but space itself is orchestral. That was my initial goal, and I still hope that we can push it more and more orchestral, because I think space is eternal, is grand, and when I'm in space, I want to hear that lush orchestra that feels a bit like a modernized John Williams vibe. Of course, there are some synths that go with it, so there's a bit of modern spice around it, but I will never consider it to be completely synth or a hybrid score.
When you're in locations, I think that's the opposite. I try to bring in much more hybrid, more alien elements to the orchestra, because you have the culture of the place mixed with the space from the orchestra. As if there is orchestra everywhere, and each dot, which is a place or a zone, has its other elements, and they mix in a bottle and become like a cocktail of different elements. I hope that once we get some of the most important hero locations done, and once I score much more of the space element of our game, it really becomes evident. Of course, there will be synths and some hybrid cues for diversity, but in general you'll feel that when you're in space, there's an orchestra going with you that feels, for example, like E.T. I also like it when ambient music feels a bit more traditional or a bit more contained. Maybe that's where you get the sad slash hopeful feeling, because that's what we feel from the '80s. But once we go into more action, it really goes into a very modern action score that you'd hear from a big-budget modern movie like Transformers.
Of course, it depends. When you move system, for example to the Pyro system, this won't be exactly true, because I believe Pyro should feel different, probably not very orchestral. But at least in the system that we are working on right now, most locations should feel more orchestral.