Farlands
Composer Jason Graves scores an innovative VR
exploration game for the Oculus Rift.
by Jennifer Walden
GameOn
Virtual reality is rewriting the rules for game sound design
and audio implementation, but what
does it mean for the world of com-
posing? Award-winning composer
Jason Graves, known for his Dead
Space, Tomb Raider, and Far Cry
scores, feels that unless it’s diegetic
music (originating from a source
within the game’s world), there’s no
need to spatialize the score. “It’s a
very exciting time because in VR
you are wearing headphones and
you have this sense of 3D position-
ing. That is super cool when you’re
talking about sound effects, or may-
be music that is coming from within
the game world. But if it is just the
score, then doing too much with
the 3D perspective becomes more
of a gimmick and not something
that enhances the experience,” says
Graves.
Fresh off scoring Far Cry Primal
for Ubisoft, Graves began work on
Farlands, a VR exploration game for
Oculus Studios, released exclusively
on their Oculus Rift platform. Graves
met with Tom Smurdon, audio direc-
tor at Oculus VR, whom he’s worked
with on games for other studios in
the past. They sat down with Far-
lands executive producer Bernard
Yee and creative director Brandon
Dillon to brainstorm possible direc-
tions for the Farlands score. Graves
suggested using acoustic instru-
ments, or even acoustic non-instru-
ments, all treated to sound slightly
alien. “I just love trying different
things. And being a percussionist
and a drummer, I am going to tap
and bang on anything I can get my
hands on,” Graves says. Four months
after that brainstorm session, Smur-
don gave Graves the green light, but
he didn’t need to give him a music
brief. “Tom told me to go with what-
ever I think would work. I was re-
ally left to my own devices. The only
description they had was that they
wanted something relaxing.”
Creating a relaxing score was
pretty much the opposite of what
Graves had just done for Far Cry
Primal — a sonic feast of primitive
screams over layers of organic per-
cussion. In fact, ‘relaxing’ is a rare
direction for this composer. “Relax-
ing is a word that has never been in
any musical brief that I’ve ever re-
ceived because my resume includes
games like Dead Space, Tomb Raider,
