Inon Zur OST Starfield

Bethesda Game Studios and Laced Records have crewed up to bring the music of Starfield to deluxe vinyl.

As any player of a Bethesda Game Studios title knows, music shapes the story and is a constant companion on one’s adventure. Composer Inon Zur’s long-running collaboration with director Todd Howard and the studio began all the way back on 2008’s Fallout 3. With the Starfield score, they sought to evoke both the vastness of space and humanity’s curiosity-driven efforts to chart the unknown. This led to Zur weaving together traditional and non-traditional orchestral and electronic palettes into an aural tapestry of the organic and the synthetic.

During development, the team circulated an eclectic range of reference points: launching off with sci-fi staples John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith; passing through a classical nebula of Debussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev; flying by Vangelis’ towering synth work; and glancing the experimental work of Einstürzende Neubauten and John Cage.

Starfield’s orchestral cues — recorded by the Budapest Film Orchestra — often see different instrumental sections invoking imaginative aspects of space. Brisk, repeated sequences in the woodwinds represent particles. Strings playing undulating chords mimic long waves of interstellar energy. The brass section becomes a beacon of melody blasting out across the galaxy. Similarly, the more electronic-driven cues maintain a sense of grandeur through weighty synth pads that underpin cryptic repeated patterns and unusual percussive jabs.

Aeralie Brighton (DEATHLOOP, Ori series) is a featured vocalist on the soundtrack.