Trevor Gureckis, the composer of theDead Spaceremake, is a gamer and classically trained musician with years of experience in television and movies. His maiden voyage in the world of video game composition, however, was aboard theUSG Ishimura, looking over Isaac Clarke’s shoulder. It is a testament to Gureckis' skill that EA and Motive trusted him with the remake of such a high-profile IP as his first video game score, and the extremely positive receptionDead Spacehas received proves they made the right call.
Game Rant spoke to Gureckis about the challenges of scoring video game music, the key influences that defineDead Space’s sound, and the role that music plays in the game’s narrative and world-building.The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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Q: Please introduce yourself by sharing some of your past projects.
A: I’mTrevor Gureckis, composer ofDead Space. This is actually my first video game. My previous work is in the film and TV world. I worked with M. Night Shyamalan for many years on his TV show with Apple calledServant, and his previous movie calledOld.I also made a movie with Neil Burger calledVoyagers. And I also did the movieThe Goldfinch, directed by John Crowley. That’s the relevant film and TV stuff that I’ve done, and getting to score a game was a new, exciting, and awesome opportunity. I was super excited by the prospect.
Q: In terms of music and sound, what are the greatest changes between the originalDead Spaceand the remake?
A: The original soundtrack by Jason Graves is in the remake. Portions of it are, but we also took time to explore some new opportunities, includingnew narrative avenues with Nicole, the character Isaac is searching for. Also, the theme of Corruption is an experience that happens in the game over the course of play, as the character kind of loses his mind. We wanted to achieve part of that experience with music.
I also re-scored some of the major boss themes, like Hunter, Leviathan, and the final boss, the Hivemind, and a number of cut scenes in between. So it started out mostly focused onnarrative situations, and we ended up diving a little deeper. I play a lot of instruments—violin, cello, piano, and small percussion instruments—and I tried to incorporate that to bring more intimate sounds to the game even though we were recording with a big, 80-piece orchestra. We used Ocean Way Nashville in three big recording sessions over the course of a year and a half. But at the same time, we had that big expansive orchestra, and I wanted to capture some claustrophobic moments. Small instruments. Small percussive sounds. That sort of thing.
Q: Do you have a favorite track from theDead Spaceremake soundtrack?
A: I definitely enjoythe Hivemind battletheme, though it’s not exactly an easy listening track. It’s a lot of fun, just because it’s so wild and crazy. I’m doing all sorts of crazy things with cello, the orchestra is doing a lot of crazy aleatoric stuff, and the brass is wailing…It’s kind of fun just to hear as a sonic experience.
But I also like the morechilled-out musictoo. There are few cues that are exploring the loneliness of space. The loneliness of Isaac’s journey, in this game, is more often than not, walking alone, trying to survive. I also really like “Make Us Whole,” which is a choir piece. There’s also “Hunger for the Stars,” which is a very ambient piece. Brass colors and percussion sounds. That was inspired by what the ship would sound like musically, and coming up with a palate for that.
Q: Did you watch or play the originalDead Spacewhile developing the score for the remake?
A: I played the originalDead Spaceback in 2008. I’m a gamer, and I was a fan of the game, the score, and the whole thing. I thought it was great. The style of music, very avant garde, contemporary music, is very much in my background. I’m classically trained, so I was very aware of some of the influences that create that dialect, if that’s the right word.
I was aware of theDead Spacesound. It was important to make sure everything I wrote—well, not everything exactly, some of the cues have piano, and there’s no real connection to the originalDead Space—but we asked that question of ourselves, myself and the audio team at Motive:does this fit in theDead Spaceworld?Being somebody who played it all those years ago, and who is aware of how that music is constructed and its influences—we made sure that there was alwayscontinuity in that sonic world.
Q: Did any other games, films, music, or other media influence or inspire your approach toward scoringDead Space?
A: I definitely looked to Jerry Goldsmith withAlienand James Horner withAliensfor that kind of… melodicspace horrormusic? (Laughing) And those are great scores. We kind of think of that—not actually working together at all—but established what we imagined a space horror experience would be. And that music is inspired by [Krzysztof] Penderecki. He was a late 20th-century polish composer who did all sorts of crazy stuff in the sixties—having musicians play with different strings, different parts of their instruments, or other crazy techniques. And if you have fifty players doing that, it’s quite a sound, you know? Stanley Kubrick put it inThe Shining,so that’s the lineage of how that came about.
Q: Walk us through your process towards creating a theme for a specific environment or character. How do you begin, and how do you design music for specific thematic targets like deep-space horror?
A: It’s hard. We definitely took a wide-open book approach, and we had a lot of discussions about what it was. I had a meeting with Jo Berry, the writer ofDead Space, and she walked me through the story and how it works, which isDante’s Infernoessentially. Isaac is walking, making his way into the center of ‘Hell.’ I also got a deep background aboutall theDead Spaceloreand the story, which was super helpful.
When I was coming up with early sketches, I started out with atmospheric ideas, and then I came up with ideas that have high energy or are action-oriented. Then I started on scene-specific tracks. Some of the stuff was pulled out of random places. Like, littlepiano moments. And then we asked, “What if piano moments were Nicole’s ‘thing?’ What if we made that into her theme?” It was sort of an echo of another piece. It’s not on the album, but it has this big percussion build-up, and the after-effect was a slow piano while I played layers of violin. A cacophony of violin noise with a simple piano surrounding it. And that’s where a lot of this happens. You go to surprising places and find things you’re not really planning.
I like to start with bigger ideas first and then hone in. And when you get deep into the groove of the game, like Leviathan—by that time, I was using particular sounds and developing plug-ins to help manipulate audio recordings we’ve already made, and expand the manipulation going on. But there certainly is a crunch time, when I have to sit down and write the new Hunter theme. Just make a decision about what that is.
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Q: Sound is crucial for building tension in horror games. How did you develop music that augments dread rather than distracting or overwhelming players?
A: I didn’t do any implementation of the music into the game. I wrote all this music, and then there were music editors tasked with making it sound right. And they were given lots of stems or breakdowns of a cue, and they could decide if something was really distracting or getting in the way, especially for a game like this that has a lot ofsound design.
It’s hard to get ahead of. I decided that metallic sounds were probably problematic because there’s so much creaking and clanging that happens in the ship. It ticks. Water droplets—or blood—drop from the ceiling. It’s very noisy in there, but you can only do so much. As a composer, you have to wait and find where your stuff sits. I think having melody, you know, distinct sounds, especially that are recognizably organic, a cello, a violin, a wind instrument, or something helps it have a clear distinction from sound design too.
Even when your approach is kind of sound design-ish, you are walking a line. You think about modifying your tracks, you hear lots of clicking and tremolos, harmonics and things that are all over the spectrum. But you can still recognize that sound as a real orchestral instrument, especially when you multiply that byan actual orchestra. It’s clear it’s not one sound design element. I think you just have to make it clear what is music and what is sound design because there is a lot going on. I’m playing it now—I got the game on Friday—there’s just an amazing amount of detail. A lot of mixing music and sound design. I think that plays a key role. I don’t do any of that, but I think that is a really important factor in making sure the player isn’t distracted.
Q: Was there anything unique about the way you approached scoring the Dead Space remake compared to other projects you’ve completed?
A: Because we started so early—I don’t know if this is the case with every game—but it was luckily the case for this game, we had a lot of time to discover the kinds of sounds that we needed. We had time to develop the sonic world and the language, still operating within the realm ofDead SpaceDNA. Jason Grave’s score, like I said—I didn’t do any of the implementations—so I didn’t know how his score and my score would stand next to each other. We wanted to make sure that what we were adding felt natural, and having that time for analysis and visions was valuable. It helped us see what narrative opportunities were available, appropriate, and not superfluous. We didn’t want to re-do anything that didn’t need to be redone.
Q: In the originalDead SpaceIsaac Clarke was a silent protagonist, but in the sequels and remake, he has a voice. Did that influence the way you approached scoring the game?
A: Because I did a number of cut scenes, I was definitely hearing the voice more. I was keenly aware of trying toconnect Isaac to the storyline more. That was one of my early goals and an early task. I definitely wanted to find ways of doing that. There’s only so much you can do, but I wanted to do what I could. I incorporated certain themes into cut scenes that have recurring thematic material. There aren’t a lot of cut scenes, but they are there and Isaac plays a role now. In that way, I think that was a goal Motive and EA had, and I am hoping that my involvement helped connect Isaac more to the story.
Q: What was it like collaborating with Motive and EA?
A: They were great. They were super supportive of all the ideas. If things needed to be changed, I was always open to revision ideas at any time. They were supportive of hiring an orchestra for nine days, and it was a huge orchestra too, a great-sounding orchestra and a great hall. So they really cared about making this score into something important. They were really supportive of making sure the score got the treatment it deserved. In general, we were all just kind of learning our way through it together. Theirrespect for the originalDead Spacewas always there, and I was the same, so we were always on the same page. We always had that as a north star.
Q: What was your greatest challenge in scoring theDead Spaceremake?
A: The most difficult stuff to write… TheDead Spaceaudio engine runs in a four-layer system, with low intensity, medium intensity, and so on. These cues aren’t on the soundtrack, but they are all over the game. I had to write a few of them. It was a real learning process of video game writing.
We needed cues that could have a completely low energy state, like Isaac walking into an empty room, but as tension is increasing, you may add a second layer. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe nothing will happen. And the third layer is like a stinger,a necromorph dropping out of a ventfor instance. Then the fourth layer kicks in, which is full-on high energy. Once the player wins, the high-energy layer can fade out, and the other layers can fade back in.
It’s sort of an up-and-down crescendo. A two-minute loop, essentially, with not a lot of huge shapes. Otherwise, you’ll notice it when it repeats. Hopefully, it’s not repetitive, but I think we figured it out in a way so that is not the case. It has to have a little blockiness to it, but with definition. Figuring that music out was definitely challenging. Tovideo game composers, this may be video game composing 101, but for me, it was a learning experience.
And each one of these was a full orchestra piece. Four layers of full orchestra cues that had to be timed out and recorded that way. I would compose them in a huge mega session, all four layers. While I was working, I would play a YouTube video of some playthrough ofDead Space, just to know what those situations feel like.
Q: Can you share anything about your other current and upcoming projects?
A: I am currently working on an Apple TV show calledThe Crowded Roomstaring Tom Holland with writer/showrunner Akiva Goldsman. It’s a drama, so not a horror show. I’m not sure when it is coming out, just yet; we’re kind of racing to catch up. Mostly in-tune music and piano-driven music, in line with what I did inGoldfinchin 2019.
Q: Is there anything else you would like readers to know?
A: I really enjoyed working on theDead Spaceremake, I hope everybody enjoys the game and the score, and I hope to work on more games in the future.
[End]
Dead Spaceis available now for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
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