作者彙整: Nathan Anstadt

Nintendo announced Joker from the Persona series as the first fighter included in the Fighters Pass last December, but we didn’t know exactly when he’d join the battle. Well fans of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate were treated to the surprise announcement last night that Joker is making his debut as a playable fighter today. But who the heck is Joker? If you only own a Switch (and thus haven’t been able to experience the joy that is Persona 5) then we’re here to give you a quick rundown on this character and just what the deal with Persona is. The announcement of Joker as a fighter as well as the recent tease of the upcoming Persona 5 S are both strong indicators Switch players may be able to see for themselves before too long. But who has that kind of time? If you have played both, then good job! You did it! For everyone else, here’s everything you need to know.

Who Are Joker And Arsene?

There’s a lot to sift through when dealing with a game and series as large as Persona, but the important details are that Joker is only the nickname of the game’s high-school student protagonist, Ren Amamiya (as you choose his name, this name only comes from the anime tie-in). Like any Persona game that came before, you must not only manage a stable of monstrous creatures that spawn from your heart – persona – but your stable of high school friends and responsibilities. When you take to the game’s dungeons, or palaces, you don a mask and adopt the Joker identity.

Joker and his friends all come together in this twisted, alternate world to expose people’s inner demons, and their squad is called the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. In the trailer we see Joker wearing his mask from his Phantom Thieves costume, but we also saw him dressed in his normal Shujin Academy attire. This means if Joker looks a little too cool for school, you can literally dress him in school-appropriate clothing.

The reveal also highlighted some of Joker’s more signature abilities from the RPG. Namely, Arsene. In Smash, Joker builds a meter as he fights that will eventually allow him to remove his mask and summon his original persona to fight alongside him and bolster his attacks. In Persona, your characters are essentially useless in battle until they awaken the power of these mystical beings, so it’s nice to see that represented in the combat.

What Are Joker’s Moves?

Outside of Arsene, Joker brings his knife and gun into battle as well. Persona 5’s combat added a gun into the mix that had you managing an ammo counter during the turn-based battles, but while the gun is present in Smash, it doesn’t seem like that exact mechanic is making the jump, thankfully. Appropriately though, Joker will be using Persona abilities, Tetrakarn and Makarakarn to reflect attacks when Arsene is present. In Persona those do exactly that: they reflect physical and magical attacks respectively. So, like any character on the SSBU roster, everything they do is in some way rooted in their character’s original abilities.

The video (below) gets into his full suite of moves in Smash, but he’s bringing over moves like Eiha (or the stronger Eigaon) which curses foes and inflicts some damage over time and Persona 5 finisher, All-Out Attack, brings the whole team together for Joker’s Final Smash.

Click here to watch embedded media

What’s Going On With Joker’s Stage?

Finally, the trailer showed off Joker’s dynamic new stage, Mementos. In the RPG, Mementos is the palace that represents the hearts of all the people. It isn’t specific to any one person, but people in general. It’s a great nod to Persona 5 players, as well as perfectly evoking the jazzy, gonzo style of Atlus’ game. What’s of particular note for fans of the Persona RPGs before Persona 5, the stage changes to be themed after either Persona 3’s Dark Hour, or 4’s Midnight Channel depending on the music that is playing.

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None of this is truly important to enjoy your time with a new Super Smash Bros. fighter, but it should provide a good framework to understand why he keeps summoning this ghostly force to fight with him.

Check out our review of Persona 5 or read our feature on the Top 100 RPGs Of All Time from issue 290 of Game Informer magazine where Persona 5 made number 19 and Persona 4 ranked at number 30.

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I’m sure you are all well aware that today is everyone’s favorite holiday: National Sibling Day. In observance of this holiday, and in honor of all of our brothers and sisters, we present to you a list of the best representations of siblings in video games.

Anyone who grew up with brothers or sisters knows that forced proximity can form strong, enduring friendships or create bitter rivalries that flare up around Thanksgiving. These characters are all examples of the former with siblings that take their responsibility to family seriously. So if you remember hogging the controller and making your poor, young sibling play as Luigi, then this list is not for you. These siblings are better than you.

Mickey and Lou (Far Cry New Dawn)

Even after the apocalypse, spending time with family is important. While you might not agree with their methods (e.g., leading a ruthless gang to do their bidding and ruling through brutality and fear), you can’t deny their ambitions and cooperative spirit. In a group guided by a winner-takes-all mentality, it’s nice to see these sisters working together to make the best of their situation. At least one editor thought it was exactly what he wanted out of Far Cry, but I just wish I could be as close with my siblings like Mickey and Lou.

Jess and Soph (Wolfenstein: Youngblood)

While we may still have plenty of unanswered questions surrounding Wolfenstein: Youngblood, one thing that is clear is Jess and Soph Blazkowicz are two peas in a pod. That is, if your peas wear powerful robot exosuits and dismantle Nazi regimes. The Blazkowicz name comes with a lot of baggage in the world of Wolfenstein, but these sisters look perfectly willing to unload on the Reich to rescue their father.

Naia and Naiee (Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons)

After the tragic loss of their mother, the titular brothers Naia and Naiee must quickly strike out alone in search of a cure for their father’s recent illness. It’s a lot of pressure for these two young boys, and despite tirelessly working together to help their family, it only gets worse for these brothers. So next time you want to complain that you have an unfair amount of housework, don’t. These brothers had it worse. 

Check out our Afterwords with the creator Josef Fares here.

Koopalings (Super Mario)

Larry, Morton, Wendy, Iggy, Roy, Lemmy, and Ludwig have been together through thick and thin. After being trounced by Mario on multiple occasions, they’re still as close as ever. Even after all this time, they still make time to get together as a family and do what they love: ransacking castles and terrorizing entire kingdoms. With appearances as recent as New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe on the Switch, it’s heartwarming to know there’s at least one example of close family ties within the Mushroom Kingdom.

Calypso Twins (Borderlands 3)

We know very little about these twins (you can see our thoughts on the game’s announcement here), but from what has been shown of Borderlands 3, we know the two of them run a cult in the gun-filled wastes called the Children of the Vault. It’s not every day you see a brother and sister run a maniacal cult together, so they’re really striking out in bold new directions. They are an imposing and ostensibly powerful duo that makes us think of all the things we’d like to do with our siblings one day if only we got along like these two.

Bulbapedia

Tate and Liza (Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire)

Running a gym is hard work. Or at least I assume it is; they do seem to sort of just stand there now that I think about it. But it certainly can’t be easy to rise through the ranks to become the leader of a gym. Turnover rarely happens, and there are only eight in any given region of the world, so competition must be fierce. That makes it all the more impressive that these two young children can support each other and take the reins of one of the more difficult Pokémon gyms in all of Hoenn. They are wonderful siblings, but I do wonder where their parents are.

© 1994 Yoshitaka Amano

Edgar and Sabin Figaro (Final Fantasy VI)

Edgar and Sabin were twins born into a royal family, so while you might think that would breed jealousy and distrust, it instead harbored generosity and kindness. Edgar was considered the “older” of the two and Sabin harbored no ill will towards him. He wanted to leave the kingdom to strike out on his own, but he did not want to leave Edgar behind. Since one of them needed to stay and watch over Figaro, Edgar tricked Sabin and “lost” a coin toss so Sabin could be free from that life. This all happened 25 years ago – and before they even team up and save the world, no less.

Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot (Mortal Kombat)

These two really take it to the next level, because their bond transcends even death. Noob Saibot is actually the resurrected form of Sub-Zero from the first Mortal Kombat – originally named Bi-Han. When Bi-Han dies attempting to carry out his mission to kill Shang Tsung, he is brought back as Noob Saibot and his younger brother, Kuai Liang, adopts the Sub-Zero name to honor his late brother. It’s all pretty straightforward. But these two are still at it, you can see Noob fight Cetrion in Mortal Kombat 11 or check out the entire Mortal Kombat 11 roster.

How are you spending your sibling day? Hopefully you’re taking a cue from these video game brothers and sisters and spending some quality time together. If we missed your favorite video game siblings, let us know in the comments.
 

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When we first began unlocking achievements on the Xbox 360 in 2005, they offered a completely new way for you to look at a game: Now there would be a permanent record of your in-game accomplishments to show off. The console was designed to connect to the internet, so your friends could compare their games to yours and see how they stacked up. Maybe their gamerscore was higher, but they didn’t launch that gnome into space in Half-Life 2 or beat Halo 3 on Legendary. Achievements let us stand out in our own way, and they served as a showcase for our tastes and interests. With Microsoft reportedly readying a new line of consoles focused on streaming, and Google’s Stadia platform making big inroads into that market, I think it’s time to go back to the drawing board and either do away with the achievements system all together or, hopefully, introduce features that make playing games on Xbox feel vital again.

Aside from the sense of community and rivalry the achievement system established among players, they often offered an entirely new perspective on a how to play a game. Developers could implement them to incredible effect by reframing a game in a new way. You can see this in examples like Mirror’s Edge’s “Test of Faith” – which tasked players with playing the game without using guns – or driving a car to the top of the tallest building for “Roads? What Roads?” in Crackdown 3. The most generic achievements rewarded players for completing the story, but if you enjoyed the game enough to stick around after the credits, it was something truly special when developers included inventive and unique experiences tied to achievements. That still holds true today. The difference now is that as fun as the odd achievement is, I’ve also been unlocking them for almost 15 years, and the satisfaction of earning another 1,000 points just isn’t there anymore.

Hit The Reset Button

The first step I’d like to see Microsoft take when they release the upcoming “Scarlett” line of console is to completely bring everyone back to square one. While we have all grown attached to our individual gamerscores, that sense of discovery was lost when the Xbox One kept our achievements persistent. While I’d still like to see that legacy number represented somehow on my profile, I think the communal aspect of achievements has been reduced; the feature could be revitalized by bringing the entire community down to zero. This would avoid the situation the Xbox One had where people jumping into the Xbox ecosystem with the Xbox One were obviously starting from scratch, but the majority of their friends or people they met online would already have a long history on display.

Of particular significance is the fact that, while you may still be an avid Xbox fan, this generation of consoles saw a large shift in popularity toward the PlayStation 4. This means that there was a huge amount of players that may have built up a large gamerscore on their Xbox 360 only to make the switch to Sony’s console, abandoning that number. At least in my case, I owned both consoles in both generations, but I saw the PlayStation becoming my primary console this time around and my gamerscore has languished as a result. The new consoles are the perfect time to put everyone on even footing again.

The Platinum Standard

Sony introduced trophies in 2008 as its answer to Xbox’s achievement system. While that extra few years doesn’t seem like much, it was a lifetime for anyone starting from scratch. Why play the game on PlayStation and earn knock-off achievements when you could be adding to your ever-growing gamerscore? Now, more than 10 years and a whole console generation removed from that divide, Microsoft could really learn from what Sony did in 2008. One of the largest motivators to tracking down achievements was unlocking the full list – having that elusive 1,000/1,000 on your list for everyone to marvel at (or just yourself, most likely). What Sony did to set itself apart was capitalize on that feeling. When you unlock all the trophies in a game, you get a special platinum trophy to easily signify that you’ve completed that list. It turned that sense of satisfaction at a job well done into something easy to identify. They already give a special diamond icon when you unlock an achievement that is particularly rare, but if the icon were instead bolted next to the game to indicate a complete list, it would make showing off your accomplishments much simpler.

Deeper Rarity Tracking

The rarity tracking on achievements and trophies has been the best new addition to the features this generation. It makes it clearer that you did something very few have done. What could be fun on the new consoles – especially if they bring us all to zero – is to see not only how rare the achievement currently is, but also how many people unlocked it before you. You might often be the millionth person to unlock the first achievement, but when you see one that says you’re only the thousandth person, that would be a neat twist on the same concept.

Have Achievements Reach Across Games

Getting every achievement in a game is a hearty challenge at times, and can often be quite rewarding to look down your achievement list and see which games you’ve 100-percent completed. Where I think this system could grow with the new console is by tying achievements to multiple games at once. Maybe when you look at your list you’ll see the page for Rage 2, but then next to it is a list of achievements that require work in more than just that one game. You could be asked to defeat 100 enemies in both Rage 2 and Doom: Eternal as an example, and only once you’ve completed both tasks would you earn the achievement. These could be separate from the general achievement list, so you wouldn’t have to worry about buying additional games to finish a list, but it could be fun for anyone looking to squeeze a few more hours out of a game. Plus I’m sure developers could come up with some interesting ways to explore the system between their games.

Look To Nintendo’s Underused Stamps

Nintendo has always famously shied away from implementing a system-wide achievement analog, but the Wii U took the most Nintendo-like approach to them: stamps. They were only available in 14 games on the system, but were a curious addition. Stamps were hidden items inside the games themselves (in chests in Twilight Princess HD or as hidden collectibles in Super Mario 3D World), but once unlocked, they could be used on the system’s Miiverse community. So, if you found yourself posting in that community, you could spot players using stamps you hadn’t unlocked yet.

While unlocking something to communicate in an arcane message board tied to specific game communities might work for Nintendo (or not, as the Miiverse is sadly no longer around), for Xbox, the idea that games could tuck items away in the actual game spaces is fascinating. It might only serve to take you out of the experience in something like Red Dead Redemption II, but I would have loved finding a little trinket for my profile hidden somewhere inside Crackdown 3 or Devil May Cry 5.

It isn’t a perfect system for every game, but it’s better than Nintendo’s alternative: to not have an achievement system at all. Regarding the concept of achievements, IGN spoke with legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto about them in 2009 and he said, “I’m not a big fan of using the carrots to motivate people to play. I want people to play because they enjoy playing and want to play more.” While I understand and appreciate where he is coming from – and I don’t mind the lack of an achievement system on Switch – there is still something special about that drip of serotonin I get from completing a task and being rewarded for it.

Enter The Ubisoft Club

Ubisoft Club is something I’ve always just put up with; it primarily tied into Ubisoft games (as you’d expect) and its offerings were meek. The premise of the program was sound, though: You unlock your standard achievements, but some of them unlock “units” that players can spend on special bonuses. It could range from an upgraded weapon in Assassin’s Creed to wallpapers from The Crew, if you wanted that for some reason.

The Club’s value is questionable, but in the context of achievements – and if Microsoft were to bring back some form of digital goods as rewards – it seems completely within reason to allow you to spend some of those points in exchange for rewards. You just got 300 points in Halo Infinite? Spend some to unlock a special emblem for your profile or a mini Warthog for your avatar.

Microsoft could take it one step further and simply attach game rewards to specific achievements, so you wouldn’t need to spend points on rewards. Maybe when you unlock a particular achievement, in addition to 10 achievement points, you unlock an in-game reward like an outfit, weapon, or even concept art. Whatever developers decide to attach to these achievements, it could give developers extra ways to encourage players to approach the game in specific ways. Games could theoretically do this now but integrating it into the achievement system would give them added weight, and looking at a friend’s achievements and seeing that they earned some cool item for completing a task would be great extra incentive.

Achievement TCG

One of the weakest achievement-like features is on Steam. They function similarly to Xbox and PlayStation, but they offer little fanfare and even less of a reward in unlocking them. What is more interesting on Steam, though, are the trading cards. Steam trading cards are unlocked as you sink more time into a game up to a certain limit when you’ve reached a certain number of total cards per account. A game may have 10 total cards, but after unlocking your final card, you’ll only have roughly half of them. With your account reaching its maximum allotted cards for that game, this means you have to trade cards with other players. Because you can earn duplicates, it incentivizes that trading economy.

Being able to trade with other players would be an excellent opportunity to build that sense of community around achievements. Ideally you wouldn’t trade with players who hadn’t played the game at all, as that would defeat the purpose of these items, and, more importantly, it would eschew the real money trading economy Valve has in place for its cards. By keeping the system away from that muck, it would give players more reason to compare their achievements with friends, which was a large draw in the first place.

Better yet, to really change how these are applied, these cards could be tied into achievements in much the same way I suggested they attach in-game rewards above. You beat chapter 2? Here’s your Banjo-Kazooie card (I’m just being hopeful here). What they do with those cards then is where Microsoft really has an opportunity: I’d love to see them implement a system-level trading card game (think Hearthstone) where new cards are tied into achievements. The card game would be pre-installed on every console and to build different decks would only require you to play other games. This serves as both a great feature for people who love TCGs, but it also means that if you’re playing the card game and come up against someone with a cool Marcus Fenix card, you’ll want to play Gears of War and come back with a better deck. Plus it’s always a good idea to have a pack-in game.

Microsoft started something that felt revolutionary 15 years ago, and if it doesn’t take inspiration from its competition, then I hope it can come back with a more dramatic retooling of the experience that’s already there. I still think achievements have some legs, but I worry that if they stay exactly the same going forward, then we risk a future where achievements are merely a footnote in Xbox history.

Check out the best achievements and trophies of 2018 as well as a growing list of the easiest achievements to unlock. You can also read up on Xbox Live and achievements showing up on Switch with Microsoft and Nintendo’s growing collaboration.

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Gambling can be fun, but that fun lies in the potential reward, ignoring the even greater potential to lose everything. Those slim odds add an element of danger to an otherwise harmless game of chance. Blackjack or roulette may be fun, but would you ever want to play without stakes? Putting real money on the line is often what keeps people coming back for more, so that lack of financial reward makes me curious about gambling in video games. 

When video game gambling is done well, it provides exciting rewards and fun gameplay. When it’s done poorly, it’s a shallow excuse to drain your character’s wallet. Your time with a game is precious, so developers are asking a lot when they plant you in a casino. I played through several games to see if it was ever worth taking a detour from your main mission to try your hand in the casino. 

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout is a grim place with a chipper attitude. It’s a world with literal ghouls that tend bar. War may never change, but the casinos sure have. In my time playing the slots, blackjack, and roulette in Fallout: New Vegas, I came away with almost nothing of value to show for it. You can perhaps win a tasty Brahmin steak, but that hardly seems a worthwhile prize to make me want to shake hands with the one-armed bandits. There is a world full of two-armed bandits with better items just waiting to be blown away. Why loot all those office buildings for bottle caps just for a chance at some cheap food? If you find yourself on a hot streak, you may be granted access to a VIP suite that has a couple guns and a stat boosting magazine. If that streak is a little too good, you’ll be kindly asked to leave. 

The warm glow of the New Vegas lights are inviting, but gambling here feels like you spent all your money on the slot machine in the airport just to win a $50 gift certificate to Chile’s. There’s so much more to see and do in the wasteland; a stop here is only for completionists. 

Odds you’ll have fun: 2/1

Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow

When you want to be the very best, like no one ever was, it takes a lot of time and hard work. There are always more Pokémon to catch and evolve. In the Kanto region, if you want to finally fill that Pokédex you’re going to need a Porygon, and the only means of obtaining one comes from trading coins at the Celadon Game Center. A jackpot only nets you 300 coins, so you’ll have to spend plenty of time seated in front of a slot machine if you want to earn the 9,999 coins necessary for Porygon in Pokémon Red and Yellow. More if you want access to some of the exclusive powerful moves you can unlock there as well. Alternatively, you can just spend money in exchange for coins at the counter, but even that takes an exorbitant amount of both time and money.

If you neglect the fact that the Celadon Game Corner is a run-down, mob facility that let’s children gamble and sell live creatures, it is also a mindless chore that requires nothing of the player other than time. Nintendo must have recognized this was terrible, because the Pokémon: Let’s Go remakes removed the ability to gamble from the game completely. A wise decision because we felt like our Pokémon trainer was going down a bad path.

Odds you’ll have fun: 8/1

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Dragon Quest XI

Dragon Quest XI infuses charm and character into every scene and it always feels full of life. But it seemed like a real challenge to do the same thing for its in-game casinos. While you’re still just pulling a lever and hoping for the best, in Dragon Quest XI the machines have more variety in the rules and the animations so it felt like they had tried to make the casinos fun. The basic slot machines have a generous progression system wherein landing certain sets will upgrade the board to pay out more for a limited number of spins. There is an even snazzier machine that plays out a mini-RPG adventure on a screen above the wheel, and how well you do dictates how successful your party is on their journey – the farther they get, the better your reward. You are required to play in the casino briefly during the story, but thankfully you are bombarded with jackpots. Although when you win big on your first trip, the prizes are outrageously expensive and literal crap.

Even under normal circumstances, these games seem heavily skewed in the player’s favor; this means it’s hardly a burden to earn enough money for any prize you may have your eye on. There are plenty of decent weapons and armor sets to win if you want to put in the time, but none of those prizes are so necessary that you feel obligated to play. Dragon Quest’s signature charm is used to great effect, making you think that otherwise boring in-game gambling is actually worth your time. I spent an inordinate amount of time sitting at slot machines and watching the numbers get bigger. Which is what RPGs are all about.

Odds you’ll have fun: 1/3

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Yakuza Kiwami 2

Kazuma Kiryu and his gangster story is somehow both completely over-the-top schlock and grounded crime noir. Tokyo and Osaka are so well-realized with dozens of activities to do and people to talk to – you can also body slam eight goons with a bicycle at any point. Naturally this dichotomy extends to the gambling. You can take your pick from mahjong to baccarat or try your hand at a UFO Catcher or play Sega’s urinal game. I spent several hours at the UFO Catcher and refused to leave until I had each and every Super Monkey Ball character. The figures are completely useless, but Yakuza rewards you with constant accolades for completing different tasks, so it felt worth it to dabble in everything.

Most of Yakuza’s side-activities require at least some skill. I have zero understanding of the rules for mahjong (even after spending 30 minutes reading the game’s thorough instructions), so I only ever won through sheer luck. This was nice because, unlike casinos in many other games, I was expected to pay attention rather than simply pull a lever or spin a wheel. If you are somehow very good at mahjong, you can even work your way up the ranks and take on more skilled players for better paydays and bragging rights. You don’t necessarily need to engage with these games to enjoy the story, but they add just enough flavor to the world that they make it all the more entertaining when Kiryu goes full WWE and suplexes some thugs in the middle of the street.

Seriously, though, does anyone actually understand mahjong? Can you please explain it to me?

Odds you’ll have fun: 1/4

Final Fantasy VII

Before Final Fantasy VII, the series always had a traditional high fantasy setting: dragons, castles, and knights. Final Fantasy VII was the first to diverge from that and deliver the same fantasy adventure in a more industrialized setting. Many of the trappings were still present, but gone were the opera houses of Final Fantasy VI. In its place was the ostentatious glitz and glamour of the Gold Saucer.

The Gold Saucer is a cutting-edge amusement park with minigames around every corner. You can race chocobos, arm wrestle, or play basketball. This is what Dave & Buster’s would look like if it opened in Midgar. If you want the most powerful attack in the game, Knights of the Round, you’ll have to become pretty familiar with racing and breeding chocobo to unlock the fabled gold chocobo. It’s less of a strict game of chance, but you’ll be spending lots of time in the casino nonetheless.

The Gold Saucer offers all the bright lights and dark corners of a good casino but without more mundane standbys like slot machines and poker. It’s one of the more consistently enjoyable casinos in videogames (that wasn’t even planned from the beginning), and its goofy atmosphere perfectly balances the bleak reality of living beneath the nightmarish Shinra Electric Power Company. Plus, it’s still better than blitzball.

Odds you’ll have fun: 1/4

If you’d like see another example of a video game casino, you can watch our Super Replay of God Hand or you can see what the ESA thinks about video game gambling over here.

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Captain Marvel is out today, and with her presumed appearance in Avengers: Endgame just around the corner, we had a quick chat with the film’s composer, Pinar Toprak, to hear what it’s like writing music for a big film versus something smaller and more personal. We also talked about what it’s like composing music for something as massive as Fortnite. Read our interview to hear some of her history in writing music for games or you can check out our expansive interview with Yoko Taro and the composer on Nier: Automata.

Captain Marvel, Marvel Studios

With Captain Marvel coming out, what are your plans going forward? Do you have anything you’re working on right now?

I have the second season of Krypton I’m working on right now, and there’s some other exciting things which I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but yeah, I keep on writing.

You’ve written some music for Fortnite. Where is your music is in the game?

I think my music appeared on season 3 and on. Anything that you’re going to hear with a live orchestra was done by me. Most of that was in Save the World. A lot of the electronic stuff I’ve done, and a couple other seasons more that I’ve contributed music to. But then after the other projects took over, now there are other composers taking over because it’s a living, breathing game and there’s new content every season.

But I’m kind of on the first big batch, so to speak.

So is your is your music still in the game at all or, as new seasons come out, do they replace the music?

No, it’s still in there. It’s definitely in there.

You said it was this living, breathing thing. What is it like making music for something like that that changes so drastically from day-to-day?

I think that’s what makes the game really successful. There’s something new every day, and there’s no opportunity to say, “Okay, I’ve done everything I could do with this game,” and you’re done just before your ADD kicks in.

I think that’s what makes it really enticing for a lot of the players.

Did you have to change your style and how you produce music for something that’s so different from a movie or television show?

Not really. I mean games are very cinematic, which means that the actual writing is very similar in terms of the story that we’re trying to tell, but the thing that differs from TV or film writing is it has to be loopable. Because as the intensity increases or decreases, we need to be able to add more layers or remove layers, so thinking with that in mind from a technical point of view, it’s a different process. But as far as the emotion and what we’re trying to capture in the story, that’s a similar kind of writing style.

And I understand this is the second video game you’ve worked on. You worked on Ninety-Nine Nights a while ago?

That’s right! I did, that was 2004 I think.

So this isn’t your first experience working in video games, but it’s been a little while. What would you say has changed? What’s changed from then to now, and how you approach the music?

I mean the visuals are really stunning now. Technology has changed so much in video games, and in everything else the last 15 years, but the composition process is the same. That’s the timeless aspect of it, and the tools that we build things [with] change, but the process of how we go about writing the music – that’s still quite similar.

Would you ever want to return to doing video games again in the future?

Oh, absolutely! I had a blast with Fortnite. For me, the medium doesn’t really matter. What I write music for, it really doesn’t matter. I love telling a story whatever the medium is is exciting for me.

I love video games. I’ve always been a huge video game fan. I actually even got this custom-built arcade machine that’s finally arrived after waiting for it for six/seven months. It’s got pretty much every game and every console. All the classic arcade games and a lot of the other console games, as well. Unfortunately, I barely have time to play it. That’s the ironic thing, but I have it.

What’s your go to? If you had the time to play it, what arcade game do you play?

I love old arcade games, so on that machine especially, Street Fighter is my jam. That’s kind of, if I have a little bit of time I’ll just go play a little bit of Street Fighter. It makes me happy. It brings me back to my childhood.
I have an older brother, and we’re both very competitive, so we would play a lot of racing games, and that ultimately relaxes me.

You also worked on Justice League. How was that compared to something like Captain Marvel? I understand your role was slightly different.

Right. Captain Marvel is my baby, so it was a very different approach when I worked on Justice League. [It was] Danny Elfman’s score, and I was hired to write additional music for it, so it was more about staying true to Danny’s voice, and helping him out with it. But with Captain Marvel it’s every note, every nuance. It’s my baby, so it’s a very different approach.
 

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