The Best Video Game Soundtracks of All Time
From Final Fantasy to Hades, these are the video game soundtracks we keep coming back to, the composers behind them and the tracks to start with.
Some music you hear. Video game music you live inside. You hear the same track for hours while you explore a level, it plays in the background of your best wins and your worst losses, and twenty years later two notes are enough to send you straight back to your childhood bedroom.
That’s why picking the best video game soundtracks of all time is so hard, and so personal. This is our list: the scores that changed what game music could be, the ones that still give us chills, and the ones we put on when we’re not playing anything at all. For each one we’ve picked a track to start with.
For Nyx, it was Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation, back when the only way to keep the music was to hold a cassette recorder up to the TV speaker. That tape of “Aerith’s Theme”, complete with someone shouting that dinner was ready halfway through, survived well into the 2000s.
Final Fantasy VI (1994)
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu · Start with: “Aria di Mezzo Carattere”
Uematsu is often called the John Williams of video games, and Final Fantasy VI is where he showed what he could do with very little. Working with the Super Nintendo’s limited sound chip, he wrote a full opera for the game: a scene where one of the heroes takes the place of the lead singer on stage, with “lyrics” shown as text while the music swells. It’s one of the most famous scenes in gaming, and it still works. Every character also has their own theme, which gives this huge cast real emotional weight.
Honourable mention to Final Fantasy VII and “One-Winged Angel”, the choir-and-orchestra boss theme that every game composer since has tried to top.
Chrono Trigger (1995)
Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda (with Nobuo Uematsu and Noriko Matsueda) · Start with: “Corridors of Time”
Mitsuda was a young sound engineer at Square who reportedly threatened to quit unless they let him compose. They gave him Chrono Trigger. He worked himself into hospital finishing it, and the result is one of the most loved soundtracks ever made. It’s a time-travel game, and the music jumps between eras just as boldly: Celtic melodies, haunting ambient pieces, triumphant marches. Every single track is memorable, which almost never happens.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
Composer: Koji Kondo · Start with: “Song of Storms”
Kondo wrote the Super Mario Bros. theme, possibly the most recognisable piece of game music ever, so he’d earn a place on any list. But Ocarina of Time is special because the music is the gameplay. You learn songs on your ocarina and play them to change the weather, warp across the map and open doors, which means you remember every one of them forever. The Lost Woods theme, Gerudo Valley and Zelda’s Lullaby all live here too.
Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
Composer: Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori · Start with: “Halo” (main theme)
Starting a military sci-fi shooter with monks chanting was a strange choice. It was also a stroke of genius. The Gregorian-style choir that opens Halo gives the whole game a sense of mystery and scale, and it became the series’ trademark. When the guitars and drums kick in later, it hits even harder.
Red Dead Redemption (2010)
Composer: Bill Elm and Woody Jackson · Start with: “Far Away” by José González
Most of Red Dead Redemption’s score is moody Western music built around twangy guitars, harmonica and percussion, and it’s excellent. But the moment everyone remembers is when you first ride across the border into Mexico and José González’s quiet song “Far Away” starts playing. No cutscene, no explanation, just you and your horse and the music. It’s still one of the best uses of a song in any game.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Composer: Jeremy Soule · Start with: “Dragonborn”
The main theme is a booming male choir singing in the game’s invented dragon language, and it’s pure epic fantasy. But the real magic of Skyrim’s soundtrack is the quiet exploration music: soft, wandering pieces like “Far Horizons” and “Secunda” that make a snowy mountain feel lonely and beautiful. Plenty of people still put it on to read or study (we’ll have a whole list of those soon).
Journey (2012)
Composer: Austin Wintory · Start with: “Apotheosis”
Journey is a two-hour game about walking through a desert towards a mountain, with no words at all. The music has to do all the talking, and it does. Built around a solo cello that represents you, the score grows and changes as you get closer to the summit. Journey became the first video game soundtrack ever nominated for a Grammy, and once you hear the finale you’ll understand why.
Undertale (2015)
Composer: Toby Fox · Start with: “Megalovania”
Toby Fox made almost all of Undertale himself, including the music, and it’s packed with catchy, chiptune-flavoured themes that weave in and out of each other. Melodies you hear early on come back later in new forms, telling the story through music in a way that rewards attention. And then there’s “Megalovania”, a boss theme so famous it became an internet meme and ended up in Super Smash Bros.
NieR: Automata (2017)
Composer: Keiichi Okabe and MONACA · Start with: “Weight of the World”
NieR: Automata’s soundtrack is sad, gorgeous and very clever. Many tracks have vocals sung in a made-up “chaos language”, so they feel familiar but you can’t quite understand them. Most pieces exist in several versions (quiet, instrumental, full vocal) and the game slides between them as things heat up. “Weight of the World”, the ending theme, is a full-on emotional wrecking ball.
Hollow Knight (2017)
Composer: Christopher Larkin · Start with: “City of Tears”
A tiny team, a tiny budget and a soundtrack that sounds like a chamber orchestra playing in an underground cathedral. Larkin’s music matches Hollow Knight’s ruined bug kingdom perfectly: melancholic piano and strings in most areas, then frantic and heroic in the boss fights. “City of Tears”, which plays in a city where it never stops raining, is the one people fall in love with.
DOOM (2016)
Composer: Mick Gordon · Start with: “BFG Division”
The loudest entry on our list, and it earned it. Gordon built DOOM’s soundtrack from heavily processed synths and nine-string guitars tuned absurdly low, making something that sounds like industrial metal played by a machine with a grudge. It makes you play faster and angrier, which is exactly the point. Don’t put it on while you study.
Hades (2020)
Composer: Darren Korb · Start with: “In the Blood”
The best way we can describe the music of Hades is “Mediterranean prog rock”: bouzouki-like strings, heavy guitars and odd rhythms that feel ancient and modern at once. As fans of Greek myth, we love how it captures the Underworld without becoming a cliché. The songs with Ashley Barrett, especially “In the Blood”, and the duet you unlock later in the game are the highlights. (Hades and Hades II top our list of The Best Greek Mythology Video Games.)
Where to listen to video game soundtracks
Most of these soundtracks are on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube through official uploads, so it’s never been easier. If you like physical media, labels like Laced Records and iam8bit release gorgeous vinyl editions of game soundtracks. And if you want to hear them live, orchestras all over Europe now tour full concerts of game music. We’ll be keeping a list of upcoming shows soon.
Did we miss yours?
Of course we did. A list like this could easily be a hundred entries long, and we haven’t even mentioned Persona 5’s acid jazz, Celeste, Ori, Mass Effect or Street Fighter II. Tell us which soundtrack you’d put at the top, and if you run tabletop games, our guide to The Best Music for Your D&D Sessions puts a lot of these scores to work.