God of War composer Bear McCreary has revealed that Sony rebuilt part of God of War Ragnarök’s audio engine after he criticized the way combat music ended during development. McCreary explained that he wanted the orchestral score to continue naturally after players defeated enemies instead of stopping abruptly.
Speaking on the Toilet Ov Hell Podcast, McCreary discussed how his perspective as a lifelong gamer influenced his approach to video game music. According to the composer, Sony was willing to address technical limitations that other companies had previously dismissed.
Sony Reworked God of War Ragnarök’s Audio Technology
McCreary said his concerns about video game audio began long before God of War Ragnarök. He questioned several common design choices, including hearing the same music after repeatedly dying or hearing a villain’s musical theme before the character actually appeared.
“I came in there with a lot of naive notions,”
McCreary said.
“As a gamer, I just walked into Sony and said, ‘Here’s what I don’t like about video game music. Why is it like this?’”
While working on SOCOM 4, McCreary said Sony responded to his concerns differently from other companies. Rather than simply asking him to focus on composing, the team was willing to create new audio software to overcome technical limitations.
That approach continued during the development of God of War Ragnarök. McCreary noticed that Kratos’ musical themes could stop immediately when a battle ended, preventing the music from reaching what he considered a natural conclusion.
“When we started working on God of War: Ragnarök, I was like, ‘Okay, I like that I hear Kratos’s theme when I’m fighting villains, but when I defeat them, the musical theme cuts off,’”
he recalled.
Sony’s response, according to McCreary, was to refine the technology again.
“We need to write a new audio engine to fix that,”
the team told him, and the composer said the audio engine was subsequently refined.
McCreary’s work on adaptive music has been a major part of the modern God of War games. On his official website, the composer previously explained that much of Ragnarök’s gameplay music was designed to adapt across exploration and combat while maintaining the game’s musical identity.
