Jason Graves on his score for Little Hope

Another chapter of the horror game series The Dark Pictures titled Little Hope will be available to play soon. While waiting for the game release I asked Jason Graves to give me some insight on its soundtrack and his composing process as well.

I definitely was looking for something that had a more historical sound. – Jason Graves

The game is set in a small town of Little Hope which once was in the medieval madness of witchhunt. Those dark times took lives of many people, leaving behind their condemned souls looking for revenge. The story looks promising and even more intense than the previous part, Man of Medan, and so does the music.

As Jason Graves told me, the cooperation with the creative director and the audio director was key to start composing this soundtrack, as well as the soundtrack for any other game. Discussing the ideas about the game: plot points, storylines, characters let the composer look for specific sounds for the score.

I like that idea of the music being an extension of the world in the game. – Jason Graves

“I definitely was looking for something that had a more historical sound, given much of the game takes place in the late 1600’s. I’m not a huge fan of computers and algorithms taking the place of living, breathing musicians performing music” – he claims. “This score was a great excuse to push that idea even further. It’s almost completely made up of live instruments, but I also kept everything as ‘live’ as possible by using entire, non-edited takes. So there’s a looseness and raw quality to the performances, which reflect the sparse historical backdrop. There’s also a lot of intentionally out of tune instruments, again, reflecting the time period”.

To make you feel scared, Jason used many high-pitched, scratchy sounds, as well of the processed voice of his youngest daughter, who also sings the main theme of the game, along with making lots of creepy sounds. That combined with the historical background of this production and the score sounding less modern than the one for Man of Medan, makes me feel really excited about The Dark Pictures: Little Hope.