A Closer Listen
In 2024 we identified a great wave of equalizing conditions in terms of production values between large corporate actors and the independent scene. In 2025 that continues and indeed seems to now be the norm. The trend seems to be reinforced once we consider that renowned composers like Austin Wintory tend to move in-between, and that most of the artists featured in this year’s list are longstanding veterans of VGM, which, to us, signals a consolidation process. (If you don’t believe it, go listen to these artists’ early works or the first games in the series featured below, and hear the difference!) Even Toby Fox’s work no longer sounds bedroom-quality. Whether this is for better or ill remains to be seen, but we will continue to listen and evaluate as much as we can regardless of status and budget.
Eclecticism is still the primary domain of VGM over other fields of musical composition, and while this year we had but singular entries in the ‘electronic’, ‘retro’, and ‘rock, pop and eclectic’ categories, they all showcase a variegated approach to genre that is playful in spirit, but expertly crafted. Our ‘ambient’ and ‘modern composition’ entries are not removed from this fusion and freedom, although this year the genres tend to blend into each other, with the ambient OSTs decidedly exploring classical types of sound. We firmly believe that no other area of working composers can handle such principles as deftly as those in VGM ~ a postmodern mastery in itself ~ which makes us excited about works to come.
Two final notes: First, we strive to be extensive but can’t possibly cover everything. We’d love to know which of the smaller soundtracks captivated you this year! Second, if any composers and musicians are reading this, please make your music as accessible as possible for audiences beyond the gaming world! Bandcamp remains our favourite platform, but Spotify and YouTube Music work well. Please don’t restrict yourselves to Steam or GOG to sell or stream your work ~ there’s an entire world of music enthusiasts out there ready to listen.
And now, by genre and in alphabetical order, we present the *Press A* best videogame soundtracks of 2025!
Amos Roddy ~ Citizen Sleeper 2
2022’s Citizen Sleeper was acclaimed for its novel approach to dice-based role-play mechanics and its sumptuous script. Undeniably though, it was the weight of Amos Roddy’s electronic soundscapes that strengthened the game’s gravitational pull. Like other sequels further down this list, Citizen Sleeper 2 is concerned not with originality but with pushing gently against its predecessor’s porous edges. Space is vast and vacuous ~ as the clean melodic tones, amorphous drones and plangent depths drifting through this set describe ~ but it also represents the potential of humankind to invent, explore, correct sins and re-emerge. So likewise emerging from the textural ambience, a sense of definable advancement occasions to propel forward and outward, whether from shuffling trip-hop beats (“Hex”, “Suncatchers”) or glistening arpeggiated synthlines (“Light Well”).
But where there is technology there is the vice of humanity ~ the compulsion to use it not only to advance but to ensnare, to render the powerless more bereft than ever before. It is the individual and collective striving for freedom amid such oppression that is felt most earnestly through Roddy’s 100-minute set. Combating the moments of omnipotent menace (“Collapse”, “Blade in the Dark”) are those of unbridled fragility, as in the faltering piano keys of “Senna’s Rest”, and hopeful beauty, best conveyed through the likes of “Another Cycle” and the encore of “Imagined Futures” (from the predecessor). Because another cycle in space can mean drudgery, but it can also mean possibility. (Chris Redfearn-Murray)
C418 ~ Wanderstop
This is it: C418’s step away from the confines of being “the Minecraft composer”. Showing remarkable growth in compositional form and style, Wanderstop handily beats that first legendary OST at almost everything, from its seamless integration of more purely electronic and instrumental-electronic sounds, to the care made evident, track after track, about the general coherence of the work. Each piece is a building step towards an ambience that makes wonder its most precious feeling, a vehicle of self-reflection, of peacefully staying with the trouble. It’s not surprising that the game itself is about novel connections and collaborations, about getting out of oneself and plunging into the world. The soundtrack deftly follows this theme, coming to resemble Minecraft only in its willingness to feature lightly, to unobtrusively account for something deep. An exploratory work at heart, Wanderstop nonetheless centers quietness and clarity, only accelerating the pace when at the cusp of realization, an electronic drift towards reflection. C418’s work has been constantly interesting, but when I say that great things are in the horizon, having this album as proof, I do not say it lightly. (David Murrieta Flores)
Todd Baker & Lucie Treacher ~ Monument Valley 3
The first Monument Valley was closer to the strong current of 2010s electronic OSTs that, like Sword & Sorcery (formerly Superbrothers) among similar productions, were taking cues from dubstep. The sequel, composed by Todd Baker, took a swift turn towards ambient, presenting, rather, similarities with works like those of Ian William Craig. In his new collaboration with Lucie Treacher for the third entry in the series, there’s a marked interest in reformulating the conceptual basis of the MV sound, gearing it more clearly towards a contemporary classical line. Right at the border with modern composition, MV3 fruitfully expands its engagement with classical instrumentation much more widely than its predecessor; quite a few tracks feature brief, if significant, instrumental solos. Treacher’s role is to tie down that sensibility with a creative return to electronics, providing a synthesis of styles the kind that only a collaboration brings out. It is indeed the best MV so far, in that regard, bringing with it an approach irreducible to ambient, classical, or electronic, interestingly playing out the relationship between the three. (DMF)
Sam Webster ~ Morsels
A game about innards, bodily fluids, exhausts and bacterial excess of life would probably make any listener think the soundtrack would be some sort of noise music exercise in cruelty. Rather, Webster has crafted a smooth journey of lounge and acid jazz worthy of the summer-worship of Koop’s Waltz for Koop or Kyoto Jazz Massive’s Spirit of the Sun. Without fret, the album grows under a sickly sun, its bright harmonies and relaxing melodies underlined by slight crackles and low electronic rumbles; like the sweet, sugary smell of accumulated trash, it draws attention to the beauty of the cycle of life, with all its playful maggots and breezy flies. Without a care in the world they proliferate, contaminate, and provide essential decay – rotting as downtempo collage of vacation dispersal, a Jaga Jazzist blend of being-towards-death. It is in this sense that this is music to chill to, to revel in the endless vibrations of micro-organisms eating away at your vitality, second by second. The acid jazz OST was due for a reconsideration since the late 90s, when the Sonics moved toward rock n’ roll, and Morsels has happily risen to the challenge. It will put a handsomely rotten smile on your face, and it will feel great. (DMF)
Austin Wintory ~ Sword of the Sea
This year gifted us with not one, but two Wintory soundtracks. The prolific composer has proven, time and again, that he treats every project on its own terms, so that no two OSTs are the same. In this case, Sword of the Sea shines more brightly than Eternal Shards for its confidence: while less experimental in premise, Sword more clearly pulls from Wintory’s particularly neo-romantic sensibilities and strengths, resulting in an album that feels more, rather than less, adventurous. Without grand statements, the soundtrack freely develops into dreamy fantasy territory, and the measured inclusion of choir sections into the arrangements meaningfully grants an epic character to it. Not in terms of bombast, but more crucially in terms of depth, of a listening experience configured no longer through an overwhelming aesthetic, but a more impressionistic dynamic of unresolved and defined harmonics, melodic precision, and a complementary tendency to build ambience sections. As with any of the composer’s works, it’s a guaranteed listening experience. (DMF)
Christopher Larkin ~ Silksong
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a towering achievement. As towering as the climb facing the game’s protagonist Hornet, and the challenge confronting the player to conquer it. In a minituarised bug world full of despair, where denizens are controlled by the silk wielded by a god, and where song is the awakening weapon of defiance (Hornet’s weapon doubles as a string instrument), it’s fitting that Larkin’s music imposes itself so completely on the experience, both playing and listening.
As a sequel, and consistent with 2017’s Hollow Knight, this OST sticks firmly to cinematic, modern composition without even attempting to enter electronic, glitch or the rock/metal spaces that so many classical contemporaries dabble in. What makes it so special is Larkin’s exacting use of timbre and variety of delivery ~ dynamically, melodically and texturally ~ all spun from a focused set of instruments. So for all the Howard Shore-esque grandiosity there are equal parts scaled down chamber pieces comprising violas and cellos, say. The composer chooses the approach that best evokes locations of the world, from its arenas, fields and high halls to its nests, cellars and pipes.
Because Pharloom provides a rich tapestry for Larkin to needle at, and he makes effective use of aural tropes to colour in its many key environments. The glockenspeil and rhythmic chimes of “Bellhart”, made almost entirely of old bells; the choral hymn that haunts you through the hollowed-out high cathedral; the perpetual polyrhythms and pizzicato of the central spire’s inner, mechanical workings. The frenetic battle music veers from befitting a horror soundtrack (“Sister Splinter”) through rhythmically confounding (“Incisive Battle”) to minimal and elegant (“Lace”). But the composer is equally adept at subversion, offering in the world’s most gruesome, infested region of “Bilewater” a melancholic piano piece of delicacy and beauty ~ a salve when the player perhaps needs it most. Silksong takes the baton from its already celebrated predecessor and proceeds to scale an entire mountain. (CRM)
Gareth Coker ~ Absolum
A Zimmer-esque ambition sweeps throughout Absolum, an eclectic drive to incorporate a multiplicity of styles and genres into a grand totality. Coker succeeds, however, where the Zimmerisms usually fail, because the coherence of the work is meticulously crafted but not strictly closed down, leading to pieces that breezily move across arrangements that under the hands of a less careful composer would feel fragmented, even bloated. Its remit is decidedly Wagnerian, with a mythical scope and an ear for closing down musical distances through thematic repetitions and reformulations. Divided into four “biome sections”, the soundtrack structures its dialogues in an impressively tight manner, with subtle connections between them, slight reformulations introduced in new contexts, new instrumentation sets, and distinct directions. Each section features an anchor track made by a guest composer, with DOOM’s Mick Gordon leading the charge, followed by Elden Ring’s Yuka Kitamura and Dark Soul’s Motoi Sakuraba. Interestingly, these tracks flip the OST’s dynamic without breaking it entirely, testing its limits and fulfilling that ambition with flair. All in all, this is perhaps Coker’s best since Ori, an epic journey of its own. (DMF)
Max LL ~ 33 Immortals
Grounded upon actual medieval music rather than just riffing on medievalisms, as is the usual case for VGM, 33 Immortals feels weighty and seriously committed to the feeling of spiritual engagement. It moves, of course, throughout more classical terrain, but informed by contemporary readings of such themes – for instance, there’s something in the “Inferno” arc of compositions that recalls Arvo Pärt’s intense, elegiac brevity of style, but also the more dramatic power of cinematic referents like VGM’s own Jeremy Soule and The Omen’s Jerry Goldsmith. The organ harmonics in the closing minutes of the series is the cherry on top of an already heady mix of a cake. The album goes to show that another medievalism is possible, one that does not ape Romantic interpretations of epics, but goes straight to the source, breaking temporal molds with interesting approaches to sacred music traditions that evade the problems of the Romantics’ fixation with the hero’s journey. There is hope yet for the fantasy soundtrack, and 33 Immortals is its beacon. (DMF)
Zeta ~ Sultan’s Game
Perhaps I am going to reveal more about my biases than anything else, but one of the most surprising qualities of Sultan’s Game is that it does not give in to musical orientalist fantasies, particularly the post-2001 brand. Instead, composer Zeta thoughtfully sought out another sort of imaginary fusion rooted in the actual music of the Xinjiang Uyghurs, merging it with classical Chinese and Western modes. The resulting mix of instrumentation is impressive, to say the least, and the compositions themselves showcase a creative understanding of Central Asian music extremely rare in the VGM world. The album itself deploys the fusion at a didactic pace, introducing each cultural element with elegance, culminating its unique blend by the middle section, then flowing into darker – even drone – territory about two-thirds in, only to finish with a swift, traditional dance track. The overarching development, while thematically oppressing, emphasizes the drone as its darkest aspect, while the rest of the compositions flow between melancholic festivity and neo-classical intensity. It is an impressive work of re-imagination and integration of musical traditions, one of the year’s most creative highlights in OSTs. (DMF)
Yuzo Koshiro ~ Earthion
It is clear we are living through a Koshiro renaissance. This year we had a dream-team collaboration with Tee Lopes for Shinobi, which unfortunately sounded too much like both stars’ past works, as well as Koshiro’s solo outing for Earthion, which is an absolute triumph, and basically holds the Retro category banner all on its own. After a while of finding a path through retro OSTs in the 2010s, and otherwise being encased in EDM by younger artists reminiscing about Streets of Rage, Koshiro upped the ante with the solid Sol Cresta in 2022, but it is now, in Earthion, where we can find his best work in years. Essentially a rock n’ roll album, its chiptune tones relentlessly blast away at varying rhythms, combinations, and riffing sequences. The sound design is particularly impressive considering that this is a game entirely programmed to be run on a Sega Genesis, and that the veteran Japanese composer has apparently pushed to board to new aural frontiers; these are real chiptunes, not simulated ones, and the virtuosity on display is worth the celebration. It is rare to live through a VGM composer’s exercise in masterful return to form, so here’s to more forceful retro music from Koshiro! (DMF)
Danny Baranowski, Josie Brechner, Jules Conroy, Sam Webster, Nick Nausbaum, Alex Moukala ~ Rift of the Necrodancer
The first Necrodancer ended up being a collection of soundtracks from different composers varying on a theme, originally, at least, made by Danny Baranowski. For this year’s sequel, the album is immediately much longer and already cooperative in nature, given it features another five artists from the outset, all of whom contribute various tracks that try to match a base – yet eclectic – style. Where its predecessor rode the 2010s synthwave and added a few fun bits of rock and electronics, Rift now enjoys the advantage of the wave being basically over, thus allowing the other, more interesting parts to shine more brightly. A few tracks fully swerve into goth metal, while others bring down the house and techno, then some twist into pop forms, but all of it in service of its fantastically silly theme; in a way, what meshes everything so well together, considering the range of styles and genres in display, is that this is all party music, meant to bring out your moves. Its gothic vibes are also key to everything working together so effortlessly, each artist clearly making their own way through the collection but never missing a beat when it comes to the transversal dialogue of the album form. It is, in short, the eclecticism of VGM at its best. (DMF)
Joel Schoch ~ Herdling
Proving as reliable as they come, Joel Schoch returns to our pages with another intricately crafted compositional score. With a diverse swathe of orchestral instrumentation and a desire to convey momentum and wonder equally, Herdling rarely rises above a stage whisper but has texture and variety to wonder at. (CRM)
Toby Fox ~ Deltarune Chapters 3 + 4
A sheer improvement over past releases, Deltarune Chapters 3+4 does “animated show” music like nothing else in VGM; it is much tighter, better directed, and its fragmented character better arranged to fit into a sit-down listening experience. (DMF)
Trigg & Gusset ~ Blue Prince
An ambient, often darkjazz journey into the heart of something wicked. Every step of the way is haunted not by terror, but by sheer melancholia, an expressionist sadness that understands the world as hollow. (DMF)
Tumult Kollektiv ~ The Knightling
Playful and full of grace, this is a soundtrack for true romantics seeking to believe. To believe in adventure, in feeling lost, in coming back now changed, the wind at the back, the sun at the front, just knowing that in the cusp of the horizon lies their true calling. (DMF)
Thu Dec 11 00:01:11 GMT 2025