I’m really grateful that D4’s team is openly sharing their progress and hyping us up! Near the end of this quarterly update, I saw a mention of D4’s music which reminded me to post this thread ( sorry if many have been posted already on the same subject but it is Really important aspect of the game for me! )
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I really have no idea why Diablo 3 had pretty much NO music ingame; I have to turn every other sound effect to 10% while music is at 100 and turn up my speakers’ volume a lot to remotely hear the ingame music ( which had a couple nice tunes but was nothing compared to D1 and D2 ) …
I’m really looking forward to hearing D4’s soundtrack, I hope it’ll be melancholic, dark, depressing, filled with insanity!
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I really enjoy D1 and D2s soundtracks but here are a couple of my favourite songs; feel free to share which tracks you like the most as well!
D1 - Caves ( this is the pure essence of Diablo for me, such a badass tune!! ) / Hell
D2 - Cave / Desert ( !! ) / Tombs / Kurast
All the D2 town hubs had such a soothing feel ( a relaxing moment , away from the constant carnage and madness )
D3 - New tristram / Act 2 Kulle ( so good, may be the best track in the whole game )
d1: DUNGEON. caves, town
d2: crypt, rogue, cave, harem, kurast, leoric
d3: no memory of any interesting music. it was mostly ambience or music you couldn’t hear
They should add more guitars to it. D1 music is so memorable because of guitars. D3 music is full of electronic pads, and so is very boring, and, ofc, much easier to compose.
Bring back Matt Uelman. It’s like making a Starwars film without John Williams. Diablo is and will never be the same without MU’s artistry for this franchise.
It’s just the opposite for me. The music is so loud I have to set it at 15% to 25% or I can’t hear anything else but the music.
Matt Uelmen was originally asked to compose the music for D3. However, doing so would require him (his family and studio) to move to Blizzard’s location. He did not wish to do this, so other composers were chosen. (At least that’s what I read, back when D3’s release was first announced. I don’t know if that’s true or not).
Even though Matt Uelmen didn’t compose D3’s music, he’s a musician on many of the tracks.
Actually he did compose for D3, just not the one that was released. Most of it ended up in WoW BC, the rest was used in the 2008 WWI demo.
From what I read, Uelmen left Blizzard in 2007, after they started working on the final version of D3. I don’t think they asked him to come back, nor will they for D4.
It’s a shame but not a disaster. I think Derek Duke did a fantastic job on RoS, in a different style yes but it proves other musicians can be trusted. Another example, very faithful to Uelmen style, is the Diablo Respawned soundtrack by Julian Korbl : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVjWUUFW4zw
From what music was in the barb and rogue videos in the last quarterly update I’m really impressed at the craftmanship, but found the music was lacking an independent soul.
To be crass, I think the music, though well crafted, sounded like a schizophrenic amalgamation of sounds from D1 & D2 with the philosophy of D3.
To explain further; different sounds from the older games seemed forcefully pushed into the modern movie style of ambient music that is not meant to create a coherent atmosphere with its own personality, but exists soley to elicit an orchestrated emotional response from the player corresponding with the current scene.
While this approach is not conducive to creating a memorable soundtrack, in a game like D3 it poses little problem besides that fact because there aren’t many ways of playing the game, and so the players will experience the same gameplay in the same way and in turn the emotional cues will fit the narrative.
However in a game where the player has access to many different styles of play and thus dictates the pacing more freely the approach is regrettable as it risks greatly taking away from the player fantasy, the core of any rpg.
Again, the music was Very well crafted with the modern fat style of production that lends itself so well to a full surround experience, but it’s void of personality and is not enough for a memorable soundtrack.
I leave this post to give my opinion and wish on the composer for Diablo 4:
I really wish Matt Uelmen would compose the Diablo 4 soundtrack, to catch the expected dark and creepy atmosphere of Diablo 4 as Matt Uelmen did an excellent job with that in Diablo 1 and 2.
Last but not least we have some nostalgic moments with Diablo 4 music hearing his specific signature within the tunes.
So it is up to you Blizzard, to get him for the soundtrack, he is the man for this job !
