Hollow. (Dark Souls Rearrangement Project)

This rearrangement project was a joy to work on because it allowed me to express my love for a game series that I hold very near and dear to my heart.

The Dark Souls series has had a huge impact on my life and changed the way I viewed video games. From the excruciating but rewarding difficulty to the world building and storytelling, I fell in love with everything about the series. One of the things that stood out to me the most was its music.

The Souls games have always had its music set the tone for specific areas of the game and within those areas, reside their respective bosses which all have their own themes. The world of each Souls game is very bleak and depressing and the music is aimed to portray that feeling. Songs like Firelink Shrine in both DS1 and DS3 and Majula in DS2 are examples of that. Dreary and melancholic with minimal instruments being played. The boss themes in the Souls games however, are more bombastic and epic in scale to fit the intensity of the fight and to also fit the bosses background lore and overall character arc. A few examples are the Abyss Watchers theme, Artorias's theme and Gwyn's theme, which many people already recognize (Pling Pling Plong!). The Abyss Watchers were essentially followers of Artorias and their boss theme is meant to symbolize their legion that has succumbed to the Abyss, the very thing that they were fighting against. Artorias was an honorable knight, one of Gwyn's 4 knights, who spent years on end fighting the Abyss with his wolf companion, Sif. Eventually, our character ends up killing him because he, himself, has succumbed to the Abyss. Both Artorias and the Abyss Watchers are linked to each other and both their boss themes are very melancholic, filled with emotive strings and a soft choir to accompany it all. Gwyn's theme and Gwyn's entire character for that matter, is a completely different story, but I'll let you all figure that one for yourselves to spare you from my small nerd rant lol.

Each song in this project is meant to pay homage to amazing composers like Motoi Sakuraba and Yuka Kitamura, who wrote these amazing songs and to give a different feel to them while still making them feel nostalgic all at the same time.

I hope I did them justice :)