🤔 Are Loops in Game Music a BAD Thing?

A few weeks back, I discussed my work on Dragonheir: Silent Gods, and the risk of game music falling into modular, loop-heavy music. 🔁

A composer and reader reached out to ask me to clarify if modular music is ALWAYS a bad thing, noting that loops are pretty much unavoidable in the implementation of most games.

Here’s what I think.

Loops aren’t bad in themselves…

… but the risk that comes with them can be.

Let’s say you’re working on a track that loops at the two minute mark.

You wind up writing a nice little 30-second idea that repeats in variations 4 times, and then you’ve hit your loop point at 2:00.

Do you see the problem? 🔎

That 2-minute track length was a prime piece of musical real estate. If the player is in the area where the music is playing for 10 minutes, they’ll hear your track 5 times.

But if you use a 30-second idea FOUR TIMES within that 2-minute track, they’re going to hear that idea 20 times total.

Loops aren’t the problem, but loops WITHIN loops can be.

Even if the looped start/end point is a necessity, the piece doesn’t need to be modular within itself. Composers like Jeremy Soule are extremely good at telling musical stories within their looped piece by modulating and creating some more nuanced form inside of it.

To be fair, loop-heavy music isn’t ALWAYS a problem. This style was popular in early games (partially based on storage limitations), and still can be heard on modern projects.

But if you’re talking about a full-blown, deep story-driven game like God of War…

… or a game with a MASSIVE time sink from its gamers like Skyrim…

… then your loop-ception risks breaking immersion at best, and becoming annoying at worst.