Okay, we didn’t hate the music the entire time, just for the first three hours. The composer, Mikolai Stroinski, is known for his smaller (Dark Souls trailer) and bigger works (The Witcher 3). He expressed his interest in making music for The Vanishing of Ethan Carter by sending us his own version of the score to the game’s teaser. We liked it, so a few months later we asked him to be the first guy to try creating an actual game score.Ī few days later, Mikolai sent us three tracks. We listened to them all and I wish I could tell you “and then there was silence”, but the truth is we were very vocal about our disappointment. It’s just not what we imagined the score would be, the tracks were too engaging, too cinematic, too fantastical. We listened to the tracks again and then called Mikolai, telling him that we didn’t like the direction he’d gone in but would like him to try again. Make sure you actually play the game and play the tracks as if they’re already implemented as the background music.” Mikolai was a bit surprised but agreed to give it another go.īut then one of the team piped up, “Gentlemen, this music is incredible, but don’t just listen to it. It turned out that what Mikolai has done was incredible – it’s just that we evaluated his work in the wrong way. Actually walking around Red Creek Valley with Mikolai’s music in the background was an astonishing, otherworldly experience.