Back to Black(wood): Remaking Music in Branching Narrative Media

Andrew S. Powell

Asynchronous Ludo2025 paper.

Video coming soon!

Released October 2024, Ballistic Moon’s remake of Until Dawn was met with a mixture of praise and criticism, lauded for its enhanced graphics but disparaged for its performance issues and relatively minimal additions to the original title. One such modification includes the new score composed by Hollywood horror veteran Mark Korven, replacing the original work by Jason Graves. In constructing a new musical identity, Korven creates new themes and sonic identities for characters, antagonists, and location which may or may not draw upon tendencies of film, video game, or blends of the genres inherent in interactive media. In so doing, Korven’s new score may provide the player with significantly more—or less—vital information that may influence play and determine the outcome for the eight playable characters.

 This presentation explores the use of the newly composed musical score in Until Dawn and its effect in communicating essential elements of narrative rhythm. To survey such changes, critical moments from the prologue, midpoint, and conclusion are analyzed and compared with corresponding sequences from the 2015 original title. Such scenes will examine narrative characteristics endemic of remakes: preservation (despite graphic or gameplay enhancement), modification/expansion, or insertion of newly created portions; additionally, this inquiry will build upon original analyses of interactive dramas and the filmic/ludic spectrum of music’s narrativizing and communicative function, proposing a tripartite division of Fundamental, Tangential, and Superficial levels of narrative potential. This comparison will reveal if such activity within remakes (and interactive dramas) that emphasize a more “cinematic” appearance and execution is mirrored in musical implementation and function.

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