I spent over 15 years composing music for video games, working for Dynamedion and contributing to titles across genres from space combat to fantasy RPGs. And the single biggest lesson from all of that? Video game music is not about you.
That sounds obvious. It is not. Most composers coming from trailer music or film scoring have the same instinct: make it big, make it epic. In a game, that instinct will get you in trouble.
The Elden Ring lesson
When I first played Elden Ring, I liked the main theme on the menu screen. Then I started exploring and thought: "Where is the music?" There was this strange, barely perceptible wash of sound. String glissandos sliding up and down, some distant horns moving in half steps, almost like noise. For the first hour, I genuinely was not sure if what I was hearing counted as music.
Then I reached my first boss fight. The Tree Sentinel. And the music hit like a wall.
That contrast is the entire point. Because the game starves you of music during exploration, the boss battle tracks carry ten times the weight. You approach an enemy and you are genuinely curious what the music will sound like. Compare that to a game where orchestral music blares nonstop for eight hours. By hour three, you have tuned it out completely.
I was about to refund the game after my first death to the Tree Sentinel, by the way. That would have been embarrassing. But the music is why I kept playing, and the silence between fights is what made the music matter.
What a main theme actually needs
My go-to example for a great video game main theme is still the Morrowind theme by Jeremy Soule. The entire thing is built on about eight bars. Four bars of an A theme, four bars of a B theme, repeated and growing. That is it.
He does not wander off into some unrelated C section. He does not try to prove how many ideas he can fit into three minutes. He takes one melodic idea and develops it, letting the orchestration do the work of building intensity. The track ends with the same instrument it started with, the gran cassa. Everything comes full circle.
That theme became the musical identity of the entire Elder Scrolls series. Every sequel carries a variation of it, and fans recognize it instantly. That is what a great main theme does. It becomes inseparable from the experience.
The Far Horizons track from Skyrim is another example worth studying. Five notes in, and anyone who has played the game knows exactly what it is. When you hear a melody that identifiable, that quickly, something went right in the writing process. It works because it does not compete with the game. When you are wandering through Whiterun, talking to farmers, checking your inventory, the music just sits there, supporting the mood without ever demanding your attention.
The five tracks for your demo reel
If you are putting together a video game demo reel, you do not need 14 genre-specific reels. You need one convincing one. Here is what I recommend it contain:
A main theme. 90 to 150 seconds. This is where you show you can write a melody that tells a story and builds without losing focus. Do not introduce random ideas halfway through. Develop what you started with.
An ambient or exploration track. 45 to 90 seconds. This one is harder than it sounds. Writing something that works as background without being boring, without repeating too obviously, and without ever pulling the player out of whatever they are doing in the game requires real discipline. Listen to Streets of Whiterun for reference. Two minutes of basically one melody with bass note changes underneath. Nothing distracting. Nothing showing off. Perfect.
A tension or dungeon track. 45 to 90 seconds. Dark, uneasy, but not combat. The player is creeping through a corridor and does not know what is around the corner. Your music should match that uncertainty.
A combat track. About 60 seconds. Action is happening but it is not the final showdown. This is regular gameplay combat.
A boss battle track. 60 to 90 seconds. Full intensity. This is where you can finally go big, but even here, you need structure. Listen to any of the Elden Ring boss themes. The intensity builds in layers. It does not start at maximum and stay there.
If you want a bonus, add a win jingle and a lose jingle. Keep them short and clear. Although some games, Elden Ring being a perfect example, never reward you with a win jingle at all. You just survive and keep moving.
How game music actually works under the hood
Here is something that tripped me up early on: your music does not just play start to finish in a game. It is triggered by what the player does.
Imagine a simple scenario. You are walking through a forest. Exploration music is playing. A skeleton appears 30 meters away, and the game triggers a transition to tension music. You get closer, the skeleton attacks, and the game crossfades into combat music. You kill it, the combat music fades, and exploration resumes.
This is handled through middleware tools called FMOD and Wwise. Both are free to use as a composer. FMOD works a bit like a DAW. You lay out your tracks and set up trigger points, crossfades, and loop regions. Wwise is similar but works differently under the hood.
You do not have to know these tools to get work. In my 15 years composing for games, I never had to touch either of them. Most serious game companies have an audio director or senior sound designer who handles implementation. But knowing the basics helps, especially if you are pitching to smaller indie teams of three or four people who do not have a dedicated audio person.
If you want to learn FMOD, you can pick it up over a weekend. It is not as intimidating as it looks.
Layers, not just tracks
Game music often works vertically, not just horizontally. Horizontal means one track ends and another begins. Vertical means layers get added or removed on top of what is already playing.
So your exploration track might be a simple pad and a light melody. When enemies get closer, a percussion layer fades in on top. When combat starts, a brass layer kicks in on top of that. Same key, same tempo, just more density.
This means when you write your demo reel tracks, it helps if the ambient, tension, and combat pieces share the same key. Not strictly required, but it shows you understand how adaptive music works in practice. A half step down between exploration and combat can work well too. You are in E for wandering, and when the boss fight starts, the music drops to E flat. It creates tension without needing a complete musical reset.
Working with a real game team
Every technical question you have about game music, mastering levels, loop lengths, file formats, naming conventions, will be answered by the team you work with. There is no universal standard.
You will get a brief. It will tell you how long tracks should be, whether they need to loop, what style they are going for, and any technical requirements. If anything is unclear, ask. The more questions you ask, the better. Nobody on a development team is trying to trick you or set you up to fail. They want the game to sound good, same as you.
The OSTs you hear on Spotify and YouTube have been mastered as albums after the fact. What plays inside the actual game is mixed differently. Do not use a published soundtrack as your reference for levels or mastering.
Stop building, start pitching
One pattern I see constantly with composers: they want to keep writing. One more track for the reel. Maybe a sci-fi version too. And a horror one. Before you know it, they have spent six months perfecting music that nobody outside their headphones has ever heard.
Write your reel. Make it tight. Then start contacting people. Research game studios, find audio directors on LinkedIn, and reach out with something specific. I get emails all the time from composers who write "I am available for collaboration" and nothing else. That tells me absolutely nothing about what they can do for me or why I should care. Do not be that person.
The composers I have seen break into this industry fastest did not have the best reels. They had good enough reels and the discipline to actually put themselves out there while continuing to improve their craft on the side. You can do both at the same time. You should do both at the same time.
Your music does not need to be perfect. It needs to be heard.
