Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, the latest cRPG from developer Owlcat Games, boasts a magnificent soundtrack. From the main theme of the game to the catching Mythic Paths’ tunes and even the combat motifs, every player can find something to attune to.
The team has taken to Steam to share the process of the search for the main theme. It was not an easy task and took the team a long time in which they went through a number of iterations and strove to align their ideas with those of the development team.
“We had a set of key criteria for the main theme: we were looking for a melody that would be simple yet instantly memorable, and one that expressed our game’s two primary motifs of fall and repentance, as embodied in Areelu Vorlesh, the mastermind behind the portal to the demonic Abyss that devastated Sarkoris. The plan was to make the melody sound heroic and heightened to convey the scale of the conflict, so we knew we wanted to use an orchestra, a choir, and solo female vocals. We didn’t have a specific music reference that had all the qualities we had in mind, so we started searching on our own.”
The team found this particular version too “bright” considering the tragedy and the gravity of the story in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. This time the team felt they came close to the mark – the music felt beautiful, powerful, and quite somber. But the theme did not feel cohesive enough, with the transition between simple motif to a more complex segment giving hard time to listeners.
As an experiment, the team decided to make both parts of the track even more distinct from each other and replace the crusade in the second part with a depiction of the demonic forces of the Abyss.
The creative team wanted the title screen music to be uplifting and heroic, adventurous in a “duty calls” kind of way, and embodying the spirit of unity. It had to be inspiring, and the closest thing the team had was the Crusade motif. So the decision was made to set aside Areelu and Abyss and focus on that. The fourth version, despite meeting the criteria, still wasn’t approved as the main theme. But the music was still approved for use in in-game locations.
“For our fifth version, we focused on a simpler arrangement and a more logical and memorable melody for the choir and orchestra. The choir needed to perform a marching song about glorious feats. Our composer wrote the lyrics in Latin, which roughly translate as “Hail, hail Queen Galfrey! We fight, and we will prevail!” — and this was the iteration that finally won the hearts of our team and became the final version:”
