God of War (2018 video game) and languages from various Northern European folk traditions." He also wanted the score to be huge and varied, "full of peaks and valleys, tiny incantations and gigantic set pieces." The main Kratos theme in particular features low orchestral instruments, Icelandic choir, deep male vocals, powerful female vocals (in particular Faroese singer Eivør Pálsdóttir), folk percussion, and Nordic stringed instruments, such as the nyckelharpa and hurdy gurdy. The track "Witch of the Woods" uses a renaissance and baroque instrument called a viola da gamba, which is an ancestor of the modern cello. The Stranger's theme, found in the track "Deliverance", uses
Pehr Hörberg fiddle and nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle) are among the most common Swedish folk instruments. This instrumental genre is the biggest one in Swedish traditional music. A nyckelharpa (literally "key harp", plural nyckelharpor or sometimes keyed fiddle) is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string. The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the bowed Byzantine lira but is more closely related to the hurdy-gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch.