I’ll tell you something, I’ve been tired this week. Summer is winding down in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting shorter, and I feel like my body is already preparing to go deep into a winter hibernation. Hot chocolates, caning an entire sleeve of biscuits and then feeling mildly gross afterwards, scorching my skin under an electric blanket. All that good stuff.
Soundtrack Sunday
Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering a little backstory and recommendations for tracks you should be adding to your playlist.
As the temperature starts to shift, I find the music I listen to does with it. I crave mellow beats and twinkly chimes as it gets colder—like a MIDI fluffy blanket. Videogame music is literally perfect for this. If there’s a mood I’m in, there is almost definitely a videogame soundtrack out there that fits my desired vibe perfectly: cleaning, working out, writing, and of course, falling asleep.
I think part of that is just down to how we engage with music in videogames compared to any other medium. A film score might only need to orchestrate a short battle, or a fleeting moment, and an artist’s album is often more a reflection of themselves than of a world built around their music.
But videogame music can end up playing for hours on end, as big a storytelling device as the narrative or the characters, leading to this delicate balance of the genre where its looping melodies can’t be too invasive but neither can they be too forgettable. It’s that balance that makes it so perfect—the music finds the perfect nook in the back of my brain to snuggle up in.
Nostalgia almost certainly plays a part in crafting cosy videogame playlists, too. While I’ll happily listen to chilled-out tunes from games I’ve never touched, I always get the biggest fuzzies from the ones I have a huge emotional attachment to.
I would argue that Nintendo easily has the cosy videogame music market cornered—Animal Crossing hourly music is a mainstay in my relaxing playlists, and The Legend of Zelda has some some straight bangers—but that doesn’t mean PC gaming is bereft of snug tunes that wouldn’t sound amiss amongst a crackling fireplace.
If you’re also feeling the changing seasons waning on you, maybe drop a few of these tracks before bed or while curling up with a good book. Assemble a videogame playlist so snug as a bug in a rug that you accidentally hole up in a Stardew Valley-induced winter coma for the next three months.
C418 – Sweden
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For a game that can give vibes so deeply unsettling—I once got into a proper tizzy as a child when I became lost in a giant cave while zombies groaned and spiders screeched—Minecraft somehow manages to envelop all of that in one of the most beautifully comforting soundtracks.
While the survival crafting game continues to put out very good music, Volume Alpha, the original soundtrack composed by Daniel ‘C418’ Rosenfeld, is where some of its best tracks lie. His approach to creating a simplistic, ambient soundscape is where so much of Minecraft’s charm lies, but those songs still hold much of the same power outside those blocky walls.
There are so many good tracks to choose from here, but nothing gives me the fuzzies more than Sweden. There’s a reason it’s the most popular one—the gentle piano that gradually increases in velocity as strings enter into the party.
It’s incredibly simple—as much of the early Minecraft music is—but it’s what makes Sweden work so dang well. The same melody looping, occasionally with different instruments, giving a sense of familiarity that lends itself so well to being cosy as hell. A crazy good gem of videogame music.
ConcernedApe – Dance of the Moonlight Jellies
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Bar Minecraft, Stardew Valley may well be the de facto cosy PC game. For the current vibes, nothing felt more fitting than chucking Dance of the Moonlight Jellies on this list. It’s a song that plays during the festival of the same name in late summer—hey, that’s where we’re at right now—in an incredibly serene moment of jellyfish lighting up the nighttime sea.
It’s got all that twinkly goodness I was yapping about earlier, and is a song I could easily listen to on loop over and over again. The fact that Eric Barone was able to compose such a cracking soundtrack while also, you know, making the entire game, is a ridiculous feat and I will forever be envious of that man’s talent.
FoldEcho — Stellar Fishing Ground
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Infinity Nikki has a song for just about every damn thing in that game, but the one that always has me sticking around to listen is the song that plays at the Stellar Fishing Ground. It genuinely bums me out that it’s barely a minute long on Spotify, because it perfectly captures that simplistic ambience I love so much about other entries on this list.
The melody is minimalistic, almost reminiscent of late-night Animal Crossing hourly music, and I’ve fallen asleep to a looping playlist of just this song more times than I can count. Maybe it’s the Nintendo-ness of it that makes me feel weirdly nostalgic for it, despite not even being a year old.
Masayoshi Soken – Serenity
Speaking of nostalgia, this is a song I have heaps of it for. I’ll always have a soft spot for early Final Fantasy 14 tracks as someone who’s been playing for over 10 years now, and I’m especially biased towards the music of Gridania. It’s where I started as a hopeless catgirl archer all the way back in 2014, and while most of my days are spent in Limsa now (as is the way), I’ll forever love the Shroud for all its foresty warmth.
That’s exactly why I had to pick Serenity—though Endwalker’s One Small Step is an incredibly close second choice. It’s the field theme for the lands beyond the city of Gridania, and always throws me back to memories of spamming levequests and tackling FATEs I most certainly was not equipped to handle. It’s got all the things I love in a relaxation/sleep playlist—piano, soft strings, delicate melodies. It’s almost Tolkeinesque in its sound, something I wouldn’t feel amiss hearing in a Lord of the Rings film.
The “Piano Collections” version of Serenity is equally excellent, with resident pianist Keiko somehow making the entire track even more tranquil than its original.
Toby Fox – Shop
I played Undertale many moons ago and honestly cannot remember much about it (I know, I’m sorry) but the OST has always stuck with me. This is another case of one person being able to do it all, with creator Toby Fox also penning the soundtrack.
I’d argue that Megalovania isn’t exactly prime dreamland material, but Shop certainly is. It toes the line of being just mildly unsettling in the way almost all of Undertale is, but strangely homely at the same time.
It’s another track on the shorter side, but still packs a real peaceful punch. It’s a little less ambient than some of the other tracks on this list, but that’s kinda what I dig about it, with a wonderful blend of retro chiptune style and piano taking turns throughout the 50-second track.