LIGHT REFORGED

Loki's making mischief, as per usual, which this time has led to the Sons of Ivaldi being corrupted by a magic-induced frenzy over technology. You play as Baldr, the revived god of light, who finds himself half-Aesir, half-machine in a world that no longer recognizes the balance between nature's power and technological advancement.

Light Reforged is a 3rd person hack-and-slash game inspired by Norse Mythology, built in Unreal Engine 5.2.1. While still currently in development, its planned release date is late August. The roles I've served are as creative director, audio designer, and primary audio implementer.

Though this isn't the first game I've composed a soundtrack for, it's the first one that I've fully implemented myself. I started by using the Quartz subsystem in Unreal Engine, but I found out the hard way that I was trying to run before learning to walk.

I wound up switching to FMOD relatively late in the project, but using the knowledge I'd gained from the subsystem and my familiarity with DAW processes, implementing it was very smooth. FMOD is able to do what the Quartz subsystem allows you to do yourself - quantized events, running at a far higher frequency than standard blueprints, musical transitions, etc. - while giving you a nice GUI to work with. I plan on learning Quartz fully for the sake of understanding it, especially since I understand the processes better through using FMOD.

An in-editor shot of the Asgard boss arena; featuring a post processing shader, circular camera rails, and a teeny tiny Loki up on the balcony in the center-right.

My personal favorite level track in the game is for Asgard, the boss rush level. In this level you fight clones of Thor - Loki's brother - and Sif - Loki's sister-in-law - before facing down against Loki himself. The arena was just screaming to have a drum-and-bugle-corps background track, and who was I to ignore that call?

It starts and ends with a warm up chorale, which I took from memories of high school band. The drum cadences are used between fights to give a sort of auditory break from the melody, as well as to not draw away from the dialogue happening as they play. I composed Sif and Thor's individual melodies to work on their own, as well as together; that was mainly because I wanted to use both in Loki's theme. All 3 share a bass line in the sousaphones; while Sif and Thor share a C Dorian progression, Loki's dips into diminished 7th chords, C minor, E flat mixolydian, etc. to reflect a more chaotic nature. When he's vulnerable, though, the soundscape shifts to entirely percussion, with chimes, vibraphone, and timpani joining the drumline. The first two take over the melody from Sif and Thor's loops respectively, with the timpani just...going ham.

Here's a full version of the Asgard backing track, inspired by my own time in marching bands.