Inon Zur Interview

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IGNM: Is that more exciting for you as a composer? I mean instead of crafting one sweeping, linear score, this allows you to change your music stylings rather drastically throughout the game.

Inon Zur: Oh I love it, it's great. It's a great opportunity as I love to explore many styles. In fact, Joe Zajonc, who is the musical director on Shadow Ops, and I did a lot of research before I actually starting writing the music. There's a unique store in Seattle that handles all of these weird world instruments. We went there and played all of these instruments to see what would work for the various levels. We also listened to many records of local music from all over the world in order to really get a feel of what would work best for the game. So it definitely was an interesting and intriguing process which you don't usually get when you're just scoring a straight symphonic piece.

IGNM: Cool. I mean you really notice it when you listen to the Champions of Norrath music, which is a much more traditional European symphonic score and then you listen to the Shadow Ops: Red Mercury music and it jumps all over the place, which is kind of cool.

Inon Zur: Champions of Norrath has its own realm. It's not totally like a basic classical film score. It's more, you could say Lord of the Rings style in that it definitely combines a typical orchestral score with some ancient instruments—ancient flutes, percussion, drums, some vocals. So I wouldn't say that it is totally traditional, but I definitely don't go as far as I do with Red Mercury.

IGNM: It seems like you gravitate mostly toward scoring Dungeon/Hack adventure RPGs and tactical squad-based shooters. And you've sort of stayed in that realm in terms of the scores you've composed. Is that a conscious decision? Do you find that you get more chances to create grand, epic scores with these kinds of games?

Inon Zur: You know, that's not completely true. I scored three or four Sci-Fi games like Starfleet Command and Klingon Academy and Run Like Hell. And then I scored some tactical games that were less famous like Crusader Kings and War and Peace. I've scored some adventure games like Syberia II and I've scored lots of RPGs like Icewind Dale II and Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal and Fallout Tactics. And now I've started working on a lot of first-person shooters like SOCOM II and Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, and more recently Men of Valor, so I think I've been doing many styles of games throughout the years. But I must say that I have no preference for any one genre. Each one of them has a great place for music. For example, an RPG game, since it's a much slower game, you get to develop the music better. For example, in Champions of Norrath: Realms of Everquest, it just takes time. People are walking and talking and doing other stuff, so you have time to develop [the music]. With a first-person shooter, everything happens really fast. But then you get to do other stuff like more action music to get the players to react really fast. And it seems that in first-person shooters we can get the music to be more interactive, rather than in an RPG where it's playing more of a mood role. So I think each type of game has its own unique place for music.

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