Uh-oh. The MMO no-life virus started coursing through me as soon as I jumped into WoW: Forever’s beta, and it’s refusing to let up. Which is a problem, considering I’m also housing the kind of sickness that makes me pump dozens of hours into Final Fantasy 14 every week like it’s a goddamn full-time job. My body is a temple for poor time management afflictions.
Critical Hit
Welcome to Critical Hit, where I (or someone else on the PC Gamer team) celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
My only prior experience with Blizzard’s MMO is a level 13 Paladin I made a poor attempt at trying out around the release of Battle for Azeroth nearly a decade ago. This time it’s sticking. I am absolutely loving WoW: Forever’s stripped-back, old-school feel, complete with sprinklings of modernity that make it palatable for folks like me who lack those rose-tinted glasses.
The one thing I’m struggling to come around to, though? The music. Not that I think it’s bad. The opposite, in fact—I’ve been loving the ominous tones of Durotar’s overworld music, and venturing into Orgrimmar for the first time I was met with the perfect grand, foreboding sound that a city for the Horde deserves.
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My problem is how little I seem to hear any of it. World of Warcraft likes for you to sit in these long, occasionally uncomfortable stretches of silence, instead letting the sounds of its world do the talking. Crunchy orc footsteps, the whispering of the wind, the squawk of an eagle. I am admittedly warming up to that deliberate choice of ambiance, but I also can’t help but yearn for the thoroughly themed ways of Final Fantasy 14.
There’s a song for just about anything in that game. Music for each zone during daytime hours. And another one for each zone during nighttime hours. Music for dungeons. And sub-bosses. And boss bosses. Hell, this expansion’s raid series has a bespoke song for every single fight. And the final boss of each tier gets two of ’em! That’s 15 whole ass songs just for one raid series.
Do some of its songs get relentlessly overused? Of course. I’m pretty sure most Warriors of Light suffer from some sort of Machinations-induced trauma at this point. But I’m convinced that for the most part Masayoshi Soken and the wider music team have, in fact, spoiled me rotten in this regard.
Tagging an enemy in WoW: Forever without being rewarded with some juicy combat music feels downright wrong, and it’s the most unexpected way I’ve had to adapt from one MMO to another. I’ve become so used to that aural response that I’ve been feeling oddly lost without it. Hell, sometimes I’ll be smacking away at an enemy while the serenity of the overworld music plays, which feels extra weird.
I kind of appreciate that World of Warcraft doesn’t do it the way I expected it to, but I also certainly wouldn’t say no to hearing more of what its composers have to offer. What I’ve heard so far has been downright fantastic, and I’m sure it won’t be long before my brain starts getting all nostalgic and giddy when I hear the first few notes of Durotar’s music flooding my ears as memories of my Troll Shaman saying “I need more range… cannot cast that yet… I need more mana… it is too far away…” will haunt/bless me once more.
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