Last time, we told you the story behind the main theme of Wrath of the Righteous. We hope you'd like to learn a little about the work that went into Mythic Power and The Myth Begins, two pieces of in-game music written by composer Mikhail Kotov.

Mythic Power

The hero's acquisition of mythical powers is one of the game’s central themes. We thought it vital that the music convey just the right feeling: our character, who seemed to be in a hopeless situation, gains powers that rival those of a mythical being and thus becomes a threat to the demons that previously threatened them. As someone succinctly remarked in the YouTube comments for this track, "this is a boss theme, but YOU are the boss."

We gave the composer the following specifications: "The theme should have a fairly lively tempo, about halfway between a cutscene track and a combat track. We'd like the first 20 to 30 seconds to build up the anticipation that something significant is about to happen, and then develop into grand, epic music that sustains the tension until the very end."

After a while, we received the first version, which sounded like this:

Though this version met our technical specifications, it was too calm, inspiring the feeling of soaring over a sunlit expanse. The music lacked tension and did not evoke a sense of divine intervention capable of turning the tide of battle when defeat had seemed inevitable.

On the second try, the composer found the right motif and presentation. Set against this musical backdrop, acquiring mythical powers became one of the most memorable events in the game. The live orchestral rendition made it all the more beautiful.

The Myth Begins

It might seem as if any music could play during character creation: after all, it's merely the track that plays while assigning experience points and choosing the character's skills. But there's much more to it. In our game, thoughtful character creation may take more than an hour. Additionally, we wanted the player to feel they're at the beginning of a majestic and engrossing story.

For the composer, this meant the following task: write a piece of music that can play for lengthy periods without becoming tiresome and will encourage the painstaking process of choosing character parameters while immersing us in the world of Sarkoris, amid whose ruins our new adventure is about to begin. Therefore, we agreed the track shouldn't be vividly dramatic, that it should alternate between calmer and more emotional moments, and that it should quote the main theme's motif.

The first version went like this:

It quoted the motif and had the right feel, but only in the first half — around the midpoint, the music seemed to leave Sarkoris and move to the Southlands, which didn't quite fit our story. We also found this version too intense and dynamic, which is less than ideal when played for a long time.

We shared our feedback with the composer. Before long, he showed us a second draft that addressed all of our concerns. After a few more iterations and tweaks of the arrangement, we had the version of The Myth Begins that's currently in the game. We think it does a marvelous job!

We hope you've enjoyed this look into some of the early versions of what became the Wrath of the Righteous OST. In the future, we'll try to entertain you with more tales of how the game was made.