Case Study: Portal 2 Soundtrack

In Valve’s Portal 2 (2011), the musical score has a truly significant role within many aspects of the game. In the game there is a heavy theme of advanced science which presents itself both stylistically through the game’s architecture and narrative and also through the musical accompaniment. Valve composer Mike Morasky acknowledges this theme using heavily synthesised vocal arrangements, as though sung by robotic GLaDOS or one of her turrets, and also through much use of the sine wave into his compositions. The smooth and pure sound of the sine waves (often used to test electronic equipment) acts as a metaphor, sounding appropriately scientifically generated, as though GLaDOS and Wheatley have arranged the sounds throughout their own test chambers, including the modern electronic cover of one of J.S. Bach’s harpsichord pieces.

More recently the trend in videogames has been to treat the soundtrack more similarly to the film score, composing great orchestral pieces reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbusters. The pieces tend to play the role of ambient music, aptly setting the scene of the game’s level and, thus, sitting unnoticeably in the background while the player can focus on the gameplay and narrative. Portal 2, however, forces the players to take notice of the music in instances such as the “smooth jazz” segment, where gameplay stops and jazz music starts, and of course, through Jonathan Coulton’s catchy and humorous songs played through the credits (‘Still Alive’ Portal, 2007, ‘Want You Gone’, Portal 2, 2011).

Though an interactive score is not new to gaming, the first sunrise in Crysis (2007) comes to mind, the degree of interactivity within Portal 2 is such that the player can, to a certain extent, create their own melodies, selecting the sounds they hear through methods such as turning off and on switches, bouncing or sliding oneself on gels, aerial faith plates, hard light bridges and more. For this reason Morasky has said that the same piece of music within Portal 2 will only occur every 76,911 years, 125 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes and 30.3 seconds (haha). The music is also used to reward players for solving puzzles and progressing through the game in this manner and does so by adding layers of melody and applying arpeggios that sound very pleasing to the ear.

Composer Mike Morasky’s soundtrack Apperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory for the Portal 2 game was released in 2011 as a free download, calling to mind Radiohead’s In Rainbows (2007) or Nine Inch Nail’s Ghosts (2008). The soundtrack is unmistakably contemporary and completely valid as a standalone album aside from the Portal 2 videogame. It does, however, remain a constant advertisement in my iPod, reiterating the importance and marketability of the gaming soundtrack for the modern videogame.