Gamasutra - The Music of The Mojave

Atmosphere is the key ingredient in the Fallout: New Vegas soundscape. From the long-decayed, echoing gunshots to the dense, layered ambiences, these are the sounds that pull the player further into the post-apocalyptic world of the Mojave Wasteland.

My goal for Fallout: New Vegas was to make sure the music fit in seamlessly with this soundscape and would help to subconsciously guide the player through their 100+ hour experience. In order to do this, the music had to match the atmosphere of the world to a T.

We wanted to pay homage to the history of the series and draw a line between Mark Morgan's musical style from Fallout 1 and 2 and Inon Zur's musical direction from Fallout 3. To this end, Inon brought everything full circle in Fallout: New Vegas with a masterful score that perfectly fit the environment.

In such a large world with so many hours spent roaming the wasteland, it would be easy for the music to get repetitive. We ultimately decided that a location-based, adaptive and reactive music system would be the best way to alleviate the problem.

The end result is a music system that flows seamlessly from the randomly generated ambient music in the empty wasteland to the layered, location based music in the towns.