Updated Thoughts on Mass Effect 3 Composer Shift

A few days ago, I wrote a blog about how Mass Effect 3 was going to have a different composer than Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2. Rather than Jack Wall, we would be getting the film composer, Clint Mansell.

I remarked then that I was mixed and it was bittersweet. I've had a few days to think on it and I've seen a few things on the Internet so that I can elaborate on this subject a little bit more.

One of the things in the "bitter side" was that I was unaware of the circumstances behind Jack Wall's departure. For those who don't know Jack Wall is the composer of three BioWare games, those being Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2. The two Mass Effect soundtracks were brilliant with the first one capturing that 80's sci-fi, Blade Runner vibe, while Mass Effect 2 had a track for every character that symbolized them and the suicide mission track was on an epic scale. His Jade Empire OST was also great, capturing the feel of the Imperial China that BioWare attempted to hit.

Anyway, I was worried about the circumstances behind the departure as so few splits these days are without bad blood or scandal. Last night, I was on the BioWare forums and found a post by Jack Wall himself. Here's what he said:

"Working on the Mass Effect series was epic. It was mind-bending, soul-coughing, astral-plane traveling delicious loveliness - all the way. The games themselves are works of art. I wouldn't change one note of it that myself, Sam, David, Richard or Jimmy wrote. As you may have noticed by now, I am not returning to score the final game. The reasons are much too complicated to explain here, but suffice to say that the people at BioWare and I are still friends and we all really still like each other a lot. More importantly, the score for ME3 will be great and even more important than that, the game will liikely be (being BioWare and all) super duper fantastic.
Clint Mansell is cool. Enjoy.
Oh and thanks to everyone for the kind words here and over the years. For those of you who didn't say nice things, that's cool too. I'm still searching for the perfect chord. If you guys see it laying around, let me know, ok?
See you in another game in another crazy universe!"

Seeing that this was a forum post I was still skeptical but an interview I found a little later with Eurogamer (where he didn't have to be nice at all) confirmed that it was a nice split and that he just wanted to move on. Good luck Jack Wall. Here are a few of his pieces from each of the two games as a tribute.

This has now allowed me to put my full support behind BioWare and Clint Mansell for the sequel. So I am now really excited to see how Clint will handle this. Clint has shown himself to be a remarkably talented composer and in the interview with The Quietus, where he spilled the beans about the project he really seemed to understand the difference between scoring a movie and a game.

His score for Pi shows he can work a synth, his score for Moon shows he can do sci-fi, his recent score for Black Swan shows he can take other peoples' work and blend his in their while keeping their feel, and his score for Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, and The Fountain shows that he can achieve an incredible amount of emotion through his music which is what the finale of this trilogy needs given how character and story driven it is.

As shown in Requiem for a Dream he can also add a very creepy atmosphere to it as well which could work brilliantly for many situations in Mass Effect 3 particularly anything involving Reaper indoctrination (which is one of the most horrific things imaginable).

At this point, the bitter in the bittersweet is gone and I am now just excited to see how the score will work. This game can't come soon enough.