PlatinumGames Shared Samples Of 5 Astral Chain Soundtrack Songs

Satoshi Igarashi, who helped compose some of the tracks from Bayonetta 2, is acting as lead composer on the Astral Chain soundtrack and has revealed clips and motivations for five of game’s songs on the PlatinumGames Devblog. People can now listen to “Ark Mall,” “Ark Mall (Combat Phase),” “Homunculus α,” “Task Force Neuron,” and a song with a title that is a bit of a spoiler, so he referred to it as [REDACTED]. Of the five, the only one not composed by Igarashi is Naofumi Harada’s “Homunculus α,”

When it comes to the Astral Chain soundtrack, Igarashi said the goal was to match certain genres of music to certain activities and feelings in the game. He then shared a chart to show when electronic, metal, and orchestral music would be played to call attention to certain situations. After that, he noted that “Homunculus α” is a boss battle song, “Ark Mall (Combat Phase)” is not surprisingly a normal battle kind of track, “Ark Mall” and “Task Force Neuron” are both considered stage songs, and the spoiler song would be used for an event battle.

Here are Igarashi’s official descriptions for each of the five Astral Chain songs that were shared.

“Ark Mall”
Composed by Satoshi Igarashi

This background music appears in out-of-combat situations in a major shopping mall on the Ark. I know this particular sample is decidedly on the electronic side of things, which I’ll get to in a second, but for now please listen for comparison’s sake! This non-combat music lacks strong percussion or heavy guitar, and keeps the tension pretty low in general. That’s so we get maximum contrast the contrast when the combat music kicks in…

“Ark Mall (Combat Phase)”
Composed by Satoshi Igarashi

 

…like so! This is the standard combat music for regular fight scenes in the mall. As I said before, Astral Chain’s combat music is primarily built around metal guitar sounds. As far as genre goes, this piece is more rock than anything else, but it still has some of those electronic sounds mixed in to emphasize the near-future sci-fi setting. Since these fights take place in a major shopping center, I tried to give even the combat music a bit of a cosmopolitan feel.

 

As you play Astral Chain, keep your ears peeled for these contrasts between combat and non-combat music!

“Task Force Neuron”
Composed by Satoshi Igarashi

 

This is the background music for the police station where the Neuron officers go about their day-to-day work. Neuron HQ is their refuge from the dangers of fighting chimeras, so the music can’t have too much tension. If you scroll back up to the genre chart for a moment, you’ll find this sits comfortably within the “electro” area at the bottom left.

 

It isn’t too relaxed, or too dramatic; it doesn’t swell majestically and it isn’t too cool. In short, it’s a natural choice to accompany the everyday scenes you’ll spend with your fellow officers during downtime. However, Neuron HQ is a very important place in-game, so I didn’t want this music to melt completely and forgettably into the background. Balancing those seemingly contradictory goals was a big challenge as I wrote this song, but I think the result fits Astral Chain’s setting like a glove.

“Homunculus α”
Composed by Naofumi Harada

 

You’ll hear this during one of the boss fights. This boss is a big one, and needs music to match. The orchestra gives this piece more tension and a greater sense of scale than the mall combat music I shared earlier.

 

But of course, the orchestra you hear here is no ordinary orchestra; we’ve added synthesizers and digital percussion to the mix to make sure the music is unmistakably from Astral Chain. This helps it fit in alongside the music from other genres.

 

[REDACTED]
Composed by Satoshi Igarashi

You might recognize this one from the very first Astral Chain trailer. The official title is a bit of a spoiler, so I can’t share it here, but you’ll definitely know it when you hear it in-game.

 

Metal forms the foundation of this boss theme, but the orchestra – not to mention the choir! – plays a huge role in shaping the melody. Going overboard on metal instrumentation might threaten to scale down the feeling of the piece, but I think the melody keeps it sufficiently dramatic.

 

This music plays at a very pivotal moment in Astral Chain’s story, and hitting the right level of tension and drama was essential. According to our chart, then, it should be a fully orchestral piece, right? But it isn’t. There’s two reasons for that:

 

1. The size of the enemy involved. Though the impact this fight has on the story is enormous, the boss in question is not.
2. For all its importance, this is not the most climactic moment in the game. If we pull out all the stops here, where can we go when the stakes get even higher?

Astral Chain will come to the Nintendo Switch on August 30, 2019.