Dragon Age II OST Interviews
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IGN: After the game is finished, do you go back through a play it again with all of the music in place?1up gets much more specific and indepth on Dragon Age II's soundtrack.
Zur: Sure thing. I'm actually really anxious for the game right now, so I can pop it in and start playing. I'm really looking forward to see it. I know there are a few bugs that still need to be fixed. Unlike other titles from Bioware, this [score] was kind of a rush job. EA really wanted to capitalize on the success of Origins, so the game was really being pushed hard to be released now. So I'd like to know if there are bugs, or if there's anything we could patch or fix. [Editor's note: Zur is speaking about bugs in the score only; he had no involvement with the rest of the game's development.]
One of the best examples of the string quartet's expressiveness is shown in the game's main theme, which Zur wrote early in the project before any of the other cues. "Again I used Aubrey to start it, but the tone is much more intimate, and even darker, but then suddenly in the middle exactly where you expect to hear the eruption of the orchestra, the string quartet is actually playing solo," he says. "I think it's a very powerful moment, and it's a different concept for the main title."
For the score in general Zur took the approach of having at least five main character themes, but he also wrote distinct music for the specific locations and events players face in the game. In practice, these character themes often weave their way through the location/situation cues -- making the score a much deeper experience.
Fans of the first game can also expect to hear some musical nods from that as well. "You could hear, for example in the main title, a few reminiscences of the music from Dragon Age: Origins, and I did tie in some of the older themes when it called for it, but overall it's quite new and fresh and elements from the previous game are used in a different way. You can recognize them but the context is very, very different," Zur notes of this latest score.
