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    It’s Not A Hero’s Journey. It’s More Of A Hero’s Mystery

    mikyael0001By No Comments9 Mins Read
    It’s Not A Hero’s Journey. It’s More Of A Hero’s Mystery

    Avowed is a streamlined RPG that nevertheless offers a rewarding depth of experience, says its composer Venus Theory. The new game from Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds) has largely been regarded as a standout entry in Microsoft’s otherwise largely barren exclusive game catalog, dropping players into the world of Eora as an Imperial Envoy tasked with discovering the root of a soul-corrupting plague. The game is set in the same world as Obsidian’s 2015 game Pillars of Eternity and its sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

    The game constantly throws choices at the player (and even some secret choices), helping ensure that each decision feels consequential when it comes to the end of the story. To help immerse players in the world they decide the fate of, Obsidian tapped composer, electronic music artist, and content creator Venus Theory. Venus Theory–known outside of the music world as Cameron Gorham–created music that shifts along with the world of Avowed, and changes as the player’s Envoy does.

    ScreenRant spoke with Venus Theory about writing music for Avowed’s Godlike protagonist and unique world. The composer praised the game’s appeal to hardcore and more casual gamers alike, and explained how much of the soundtrack he created on his own. Plus, Venus Theory teased rare endings that could make the game worth another playthrough.

    Avowed Was Always Made To Be “Actually Reasonable To Finish”

    But That Doesn’t Make It An RPG-Lite

    “I was told upfront that it was going to be a more contained experience without being something that’s sort of on rails. I hate games like that. I always think of it as a Six Flags ride, where you’re allowed to do this and this, and you look at this, and then you move on,” Venus Theory said when asked if Avowed was pitched to him as an RPG that was friendlier to people’s schedules. He continued, saying the game was, “a really good balance of something that people who are into RPG games will enjoy.”

    For context, Avowed has smaller maps, easier loot management, and smart fast travel options that make it “actually reasonable to finish in a couple weekends if you really slam through it.” It’s a refreshing change of pace from other epic fantasy RPGs, no matter how well-made or beloved: “being a busy adult with adult responsibilities and stuff, it’s nice to see a game where it’s like, ‘Wow, I could buy that and play that and not feel like it was a waste of money because I don’t have 200 hours to sink into this game,’” said Venus Theory.

    Venus Theory Explains How His Music Evolves With The Story Of Avowed

    The Composer Aimed To Find “The Sound Of What Consequence Is”

    Venus Theory actually netted the job of Avowed composer in part thanks to this statement he made during his pitch: “What I like about the story is that it’s not a hero’s journey. It’s a hero’s mystery.” The composer leaned into that during the music, evidenced by how the main character’s theme changes as that mystery unravels, “if you make different choices, the Envoy’s character theme actually changes based on the choices that you make … it’s not the Envoy theme, it’s your Envoy theme.” He went on to say there were “about 20” variations in all.

    Choice affects more than the Envoy theme. Venus Theory aimed to explore “the sound of what consequence is,” which is explored in the game through “a lot of very morally ambiguous and morally grey things that come up in the story.” It was all in service, as Venus Theory put it, of finding “deeper shades of emotional color. If we’re going to paint our bathroom blue, there are a bazillion shades of blue. Which one is the most interesting?”

    The overall sound of the music even changes as the story progresses. “As you get closer and closer to the real answers of the game, everything gets weirder and weirder,” said Venus Theory. “It was important, I think, to devolve the soundtrack.” The composer described an orchestral-leaning beginning that turned into “more world instruments” and “more experimental stuff.” Later on in the game, Venus Theory continued, “not only are we getting away from more traditional instrumentation … we’re getting away from, ‘What is a chord progression?’”

    Avowed’s Music Is As Dense As The Game Itself

    Thanks To An “Intelligently Designed” Music System

    When describing the music system of Avowed, Venus Theory accidentally summed up what many of the most glowing reviews have said about the game itself: “[it] doesn’t need to be absolutely massive in scope, but rather more intelligently designed.” Avowed’s maps are reasonable to cross and densely packed with quests, loot, and enemies. The music is densely packed, too: “When you’re exploring the first region of the game, Dawnshore, the big orchestral version of that song and the very ambient version you hear when you’re just kind of walking around hanging out, [are] actually the same song at all times.”

    It’s an approach that Venus Theory generally took for the game as a whole: “What I did was actually write every song essentially five to seven different ways, depending on how many layers there are to the interactive music system. We wanted a very immersive and seamless experience with the music, but it still had to be interesting for our estimated playtime, between 40 to 100 hours.”

    “How To Write Orchestral Music”: Venus Theory Discusses A Frantic Day One Google Spree

    Yet The Composer Found Advantages In A Non-Orchestral Background

    Avowed Steel Garrote Captains In Emerald Stair

    The music of Avowed features sweeping orchestral moments and long ambient sonic explorations, and all of it was created by Venus Theory. “I actually wrote, mixed, and mastered this entire soundtrack from this room, which is basically just a spare bedroom in my house,” the composer said, “I have flutes, cellos, guitars, and all sorts of instruments I have no business owning, and then I bought probably a dozen other instruments.”

    But because of the game’s quick timeline on the music front (“I only had about eight months”, revealed the composer), Venus Theory largely turned to the computer: “most of everything was sample-based and, being more on the experimental realm of the music side, there’s a lot of use of spectral synthesis and physical modeling synthesis.”

    He turned to the computer in another way, too: “Being someone with essentially no formal music training, my initial Google searches on day one of this project were like, ‘How to write orchestral music’, [and] ‘What is orchestrating?’” The composer clarified, saying, “I have a really good music theory knowledge base … but orchestral fantasy’s not in my wheelhouse at all.”

    The question then became about how to turn a lack of formal orchestral training into an advantage. Venus Theory figured it out: “With stuff like the instrumentation, a lot of the time it sounds very organic because it’s sourced from organic materials, but because I had to use samples, in some cases it was a question of, ‘Well, what can I do with that that I would never be able to do live?”

    He continued: “So there’s some instances of things where it’s five cello players doing a thing, a synthesizer sound doing a different thing, and a flute player doing some other weird thing, [and] I’ll blend between those in real time based on how hard I’m pressing the keys when I play. Orchestrating something like that live, I would’ve eaten up all of the budget and all of the time to do five minutes of that. So, there’s a lot of cool things we can do with sampling that we’re not able to or allowed to do with live players.”

    Some Instruments Were Even Totally Invented To Fit The Game’s World

    The Track “Paradis” Is One Example

    The music of Avowed was even, in some cases, custom-made down to the instruments that played it. “‘Paradis’ on the soundtrack – the lead instrument in that is a plucked, sitar-type thing… it’s not real at all. It’s a mathematical model of an instrument created in the computer with physical modeling synthesis,” Venus Theory explained, “based on the location … and the time period, we can gauge of this civilization, ‘What types of instruments might they play?’”

    Venus Theory Teases An “Exceptionally Rare” Ending

    Otherwise, The Composer Didn’t Say One Specific Ending Was Canon

    Avowed Inquisitor Lodwyn Final Battle

    Like many other choice-heavy games, Avowed has multiple endings. “There’s five, I think, total” Venus Theory said in regard to the game’s ending cutscene options (after which there are narrative slideshows with more than five possibilities). As for which is canon, “I don’t know where the studio’s head is at,” the composer admitted, only to continue, “One of them is exceptionally rare, which, I would guess, is not the canon ending, because it’s kind of a fun one. I’m curious if anyone’s going to get it because, musically, it’s one of the fun ones that was really interesting to design.”

    Getting that ending comes down to a very specific dialogue tree, Venus Theory said: “There [are] a lot of very specific choices you would have to make to get close to it, and then effectively there’s one sort of speech check that you either pass or fail that determines if you get it.” He continued: “It’s two endings that are extraordinarily similar. And musically what I did is they’re exactly the same at the start … what happens in the very rare one is it starts off exactly the same and then it’s very, very abrupt.”

    It’s a good case for another playthrough: “If you play through again, you’re probably thinking you’re getting the other ending that you may have already gotten before, but you failed that speech check, and now you get sort of the hidden ending.”

    Also check out our interview with Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel and Region Director Berto Ritger.

    Avowed is out now on PC and Xbox, and is available on Game Pass.

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