Which genre of music is Guild Wars 2?

[lezbefriends.7516]

I would say EDM, because of all the pink and sparkly lights. Definitely dance music.

[Valfar.3761]

Most of GW2's OST leans towards generic ambient music. You do occasionally get melodic tracks like "Glint's Legacy" or the Mordremoth fight theme, but those are the rare exceptions.

[notebene.3190]

They got both kinds: Country and Western. 🤠

[ProtoGunner.4953]

In PvE I need immersion and the music in the maps are varied. So I usually listen to the game music, there are some very intriguing pieces.

It is a shame that in PC gaming culture people don't appreciate the in game music. In the console world - especially in Japan - there is a lot of fuzz around the boss battle music of a certain boss or other stuff. 

That said, in WvW there are like 3-4 pieces of music repeating every now and then hence I just listen to music. Generally underground electronic music (Retrowave/80s goth/post punk etc.) stuff or underground metal (thrash, death, black, atmospheric, grind, noise, brutal death).

[Diak Atoli.2085]

GW2 has some very nice classical instrumental music.

[Valfar.3761]

5 hours ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

It is a shame that in PC gaming culture people don't appreciate the in game music.

 

I have a humongous Youtube playlist that I listen to every day comprised of 2,000+ music tracks, about 2/3rds of which are from video games. 90% of those video game tracks are from Japanese games, not because I exclusively play JRPGs mind you. I've played just as many Western games. The problem is that Western music is generally crap. People will appreciate good music if you give them good music to listen to.

 

Gamers are conditioned to play the big new Western AAA games coming out, so they are only really exposed to crappy Western music. Blame modernism and classical music theory falling out of fashion. Japanese composers have preserved the tradition of classical music better than Western composers have. Most Western music students are not taught tradition properly. They have composition degrees, but don't know how to compose music. It's why Japanese video game soundtracks are far more memorable than their Western counterparts. They are melodic and well composed.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Valfar.3761

[Erise.5614]

12 minutes ago, Valfar.3761 said:

 

I have a humongous Youtube playlist that I listen to every day comprised of 2,000+ music tracks, about 2/3rds of which are from video games. 90% of those video game tracks are from Japanese games, not because I exclusively play JRPGs mind you. I've played just as many Western games. The problem is that Western music is generally crap. People will appreciate good music if you give them good music to listen to.

 

Gamers are conditioned to play the big new Western AAA games coming out, so they are only really exposed to crappy Western music. Blame modernism and classical music theory falling out of fashion. Japanese composers have preserved the tradition of classical music better than Western composers have. Most Western music students are not taught tradition properly. They have composition degrees, but don't know how to compose music. It's why Japanese video game soundtracks are far more memorable than their Western counterparts. They are melodic and well composed.

A lot of that music is intentionally not memorable. It's different design philosophies whether music should draw attention to itself and be a prominent part of the experience or whether music should be in the background and primarily support the atmosphere in a non intrusive way. 

A lot of Japanese games favor extremes, using all elements of art and design to get into the foreground of attention at some point. 8 and 16 bit games were very limited so they could basically only do a melody. Which resulted in those also being very memorable. As a main melody is what most easily sticks in your head.

Western games usually favor the subtle approach. Two valid approaches. But obviously one approach results in much more memorable music ; ) 

To answer the question. You can find similar music if you search for orchestral ambiance. 

[Hashberry.4510]

SAB, thats the pinnacle (shudders).