Behind the Game: Composer Robert Wolf Discusses the Music of Arknights

Hypergryph’s free-to-play mobile tower defense game, Arknights, has been getting a lot of attention lately because of the announcement that Arknights would be a franchise and the next title would be Arknights: Endgame. Endgame will take place on an entirely new planet, introduce a new cast of characters, and feature a unique storyline. The Arknights track, Immutable (https://youtu.be/bZqOYWozoMs) was also recently nominated for a Game Audio Network Guild award for “Best Original Song.” The coveted game awards will be announced via Twitch on May 25th. Hexany Audio’s Robert Wolf composed the nominated track, with vocals from Melissa Kaplan. Ahead of the awards show, we spoke to Robert about the making of the song. Read the full interview below.

-With Immutable, you were tasked with giving the character, Kal’tsit, a backstory. What did you do to familiarize yourself with the character?

Robert: Hypergryph provided me with a document that outlined Kal’tsit’s background, so my task was to reference aspects of her past musically. Kal’tsit is thousands of years old and has lived many different lives, as a doctor, a scientist, a socialite and even assassin, so I wanted to give a sense of that scale, a sense of that wisdom that comes with living for such a long time. Because of her millennia-spanning age, she is also pretty elusive and mysterious. I also tried to highlight the fact that she is a healer, a calm, rational doctor. All of these elements had a huge influence on the track.

-Did you have to play the game a lot to know what unfolded for Kal’tsit?

Robert: The lore of Arknights is extremely deep, and Kal’tsit is one of the game’s main characters, so there are many ways to engage with her story. There are, for example, many story summaries and analyses online that go into impressive detail about the game’s lore and Kal’tsit’s role in it.

–Immutable is very synth heavy. Can you tell us which synths you used?

Robert: For me, this was one of the most fun and exciting aspects about writing the track. I was able to use several analogue synths that we have here at Hexany Audio. I used the Moog Mother 32, the Lifeforms SV-1 and the Moog Grandmother. Many elements of the track were patched on these synths, recorded and then tweaked with filters and effects.

-What made you go in this direction? (Regarding synths)

Robert: I had used the Mother 32 and the Lifeforms SV-1 on a previous Arknights track called “Reconnection,” which is a very open, ambient synth track. I really enjoyed the process of coming up with a bass line or an arpeggio on the hardware synth and then working with the recorded sample. “Reconnection” really grew out of that process, so it was a workflow that I couldn’t wait to explore more, and “Immutable” seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.

–Arknights features gacha game mechanics. Did this affect your music at all? For people that aren’t familiar with this, can you explain what gacha game mechanics are?

Robert: Arknights is a tower-defense game where players can access over 100 unique operators with different classes and skills. Players are encouraged to find synergies between different characters in order to clear increasingly difficult challenges. With in-game currency, players can then unlock new characters by drawing from a randomized pool of items, similar to loot-boxes. The mechanics of Arknights are a lot more player-friendly than other games in this genre because they guarantee players receive at least a certain amount of high-value items or characters in each draw.

As for if this affected the music – in some games we’re very heavily influenced by the game mechanics or game mode, but with Arknights they like us to have the freedom to really tell a story with each song, so for this track no, the in-game mechanics didn’t affect the production of the track.

-You also wrote the track, Reconnection, for Arknights. How would you say that track and Immutable are different?

Robert: Absolutely! “Immutable” fits more into a typical song form with a verse and chorus, in contrast to the more ambient approach in “Reconnection,” where one texture evolves into the next over time. I learned a lot during the production of “Reconnection,” but “Immutable” was a longer process and much bigger project, including lyrics and vocals.

In general, our Hexany Audio composer team, especially our senior composers Steven Grove and Obadiah Brown-Beach, write a lot of amazing tracks for Arknights and the musical styles are always extremely diverse, ranging from rock and metal over orchestral music to EDM, rap and even folk music, so it is always exciting to get a new request for Arknights.

-Melissa Kaplan sang the lyrics for Immutable. What did that collaboration look like for you? Were you in the same studio together?

Robert: Yes, Melissa both wrote the lyrics and sang all the vocals on the track. Before I started writing “Immutable,” I discussed the concept with Hexany Audio’s lead composer, Matthew Carl Earl, and we agreed that Melissa would be the perfect fit for this track, since her vocal range and style matched what we had in mind. She is an amazing vocalist who has worked on so many games, including many Assassin’s Creed titles and most recently Horizon Forbidden West, so I was super excited to be able to work with her. I first wrote the track, including most of the vocal melody, which I sang myself for the demo, and then I sent it to Melissa, including information about the character’s backstory and the overall direction of the lyrics and vocals. She not only wrote very fitting lyrics and recorded the beautiful lead vocals in her own studio, but also provided me with a lot of background harmonies to work with. All this came together nicely in the final mix.

-Hypergryph recently announced the new Arknights: Endfield. Are you going to be creating any new music for this?

Robert: Unfortunately, I cannot share anything about this one way or another, but our music team is currently working on several new releases for Arknights, which will get released throughout the year.

-How do you think music for video games has changed since when you first got into the business?

Robert: I think it has, yes. It is exciting to see how the appreciation for video game soundtracks continues to grow. In the case of Arknights, dedicated fans closely follow each new release. This enthusiasm definitely makes me hopeful for the future of video game music. As a composer but also as a gamer, it’s always amazing to see fans of a game caring about the music.

Richard Ludlow founded our studio Hexany Audio to focus entirely on producing music and sound effects for games, which I think is very telling about just how huge the demand and love for video games and video game music is. We provide sound and music for many high-profile games, including League of Legends, Call of Duty: Mobile and many more, and it is encouraging to see how much our clients value music. Both Honor of Kings and Arknights have hosted huge concerts that featured our music, and Arknights’s Ambience Synesthesia concert will happen again later this year. It is really motivating to see how much the fans care about the music that we write, so I hope this trend continues.

You can learn more about Hexany Audio here: https://hexanyaudio.com/

Galit Gordon

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I'm a published author and proud US Army veteran who happens to be a gamer, so I decided to combine the two and love every minute of it! Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.