legendary soundtracks for computer games

Ground Theme from Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Ground Theme is the main musical theme of the game. Composer Kunyo Shimomoto wrote an 8-bit melody that has been used in all Super Mario Bros. series. Ground Theme became the longest and most memorable theme in the game. The retro sound and simple melody “gets stuck” in your head, which is why you want to listen to it again and again.

The Super Mario Bros. theme has become part of pop culture, being quoted in the media and adapted into various formats, from orchestral versions to remixes.

Hell March by Frank Klepacki for Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996)

From the very first parts, the creators of Command & Conquer made high-quality cinematic videos, came up with crazy worlds, even crazier plots – and all this to the soundtrack of composer Frank Klepacki. He wrote the music for almost all Command & Conquer games, but the most famous was Hell March for Red Alert. When creating it, Klepacki was inspired by industrial metal and marches from the Second World War. You can’t come up with a better soundtrack for the attack of fighting bears on robot samurai.

Music for Heroes of Might and Magic III by Paul Anthony Romero (1999)

The soundtrack to the strategy game Heroes of Might and Magic III has become a classic and is still popular among players. Composer Robert E. Kraft created musical themes that perfectly convey the atmosphere of the fantasy world of the game.

For all factions, the composer came up with a melody, which was arranged by an orchestra, which gave the soundtrack a special epicness. The battles also received their own musical accompaniment.

Hush – Fired Up from Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)

The Need for Speed ​​series has seen millions of plays for more than one track, with some achieving cult status. For example, Get Low by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz from the first game became a meme known as “Eron-don-don.”

Another legendary track is Fired Up by Detroit rapper Hush. It appeared in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The song from the 2005 album Bulletproof played in the main menu and set the player up for the tough atmosphere of street racing and confrontation with the police. In the lyrics, Hush raps about how his “fists are like bulldozers” and it’s better not to stand in his way, because he’s a “walking nightmare.”

Yellowcard – Rough Landing, Holly from FlatOut 2 (2006)

Another racing series that became famous, among other things, thanks to its soundtrack. Unlike Need for Speed, FlatOut offered primarily not the atmosphere of street racing, but derbies and off-road driving, where not every car made it to the finish line. Drivers literally flew out of their cars, and the game encouraged the destruction of everything and everyone. The music for such gameplay was chosen accordingly – popular rock bands of the time from Papa Roach to Fall Out Boy.

Some of the most memorable songs are “Rough Landing,” “Holly,” and “Breathing” by pop-punk band Yellowcard. The first was released on the 2006 album Lights and Sounds and tells the story of a powerful love that destroys the lyrical hero's life.

Oleg Kvasha – “Green-Eyed Taxi” (Global Deejays Remix) in GTA IV (2008)

GTA developers have always been meticulous in creating each new game and tried to convey as many details as possible that are typical of real cities. For example, when working on Vice City, the Rockstar team traveled from Edinburgh to Miami to take more photos. While walking around the city, in one of the back alleys, the guys came across a car with bullet holes in the windshield.

GTA IV takes place in Liberty City, inspired by New York City in the 2000s. There is a radio station called Vladivostok FM, which plays Kino, Glukoza, Basta, Delfina, Ranetki, and Splin. And also a remix of the song Green-Eyed Taxi by Global Deejays Remix.

In real life, the composition was aired in 2007, and Global Deejays took as a basis not the original by Mikhail Boyarsky, but the version with the voice of Igor Kvasha from his album “Dance Project Kvasha”. And this track fits perfectly into GTA IV, because its main character is a veteran of the Yugoslav wars who came to the United States for a new life – at first he works part-time in a taxi company owned by the Russian mafia.

Peggy Lee – Johnny Guitar from Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

The song “Johnny Guitar” was written by Peggy Lee and Victor Young in 1954 for the western film of the same name. The music in it is similar to Spanish Dance No. 5: Andaluza by composer Enrique Granados. The film “Johnny Guitar” itself became a cult classic, and its music was covered many times.

In 2010, the song got a second wind with the release of Fallout: New Vegas – it was played on one of the radio stations there. The song was liked by fans, first became a symbol of the game, and later – a meme:

A couple of memes about Johnny Guitar

The composition for a mid-20th century western perfectly fits the game with elements of retrofuturism and early 21st century post-apocalypse.

Epilogue by Hans Zimmer for Crysis 2 (2011)

In 2010, composer Hans Zimmer, better known for his soundtracks for multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbusters, was invited to work on the music for the shooter Crysis 2. The game, with one of the highest quality graphics of that time, which tells the story of special forces in nanosuits fighting aliens on the streets of New York, needed an equally unusual sound.

Zimmer was imbued with the atmosphere of the game and put maximum epicness into his work. The instruments in Epilogue are selected and sound so that you can practically feel the nanosuit on your skin and see alien ships when you look up at the sky.

Dragonborn from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2016)

Dragonborn has become one of the most famous musical themes of the fifth part of the Elder Scrolls series. Composer Malcolm Sternson wrote the Dragonborn theme, which sounds at all key moments of the game. The melody conveys the spirit of the struggle – the combination of choral parts and orchestra creates an atmosphere of heroism. Interestingly, in several versions of the soundtrack, the text is spoken in the language of dragons.

Music from Skyrim is performed by orchestras at venues around the world: for example, in the summer of 2024, a symphony concert was held at the House of Music in Moscow.