While not immediately as noticeable as graphical fidelity, music and sound design are integral to the overall tone and design of your favorite games. Great sound design not only includes enjoyable music but also sound effects that provide vital information as well as tactile feedback without using haptics! While listening to videos or podcasts while playing is more common than ever, I highly recommend listening to these games and appreciating the sound while you play!
Nuclear Throne
Sound by acclaimed Joonas Turner and music by Jukio Kallio elevate Nuclear Throne from a pleasant arcade roguelite to a punchy, tactile top down shooter. Varied music keeps the movement going between different tones, with some solemn tracks hidden behind low health frame it in a different light.
The only fault of Nuclear Throne's sound is a faulty slider adjusting overall sound, which leads to the incredible soundtrack being buried under gunfire and mutant deathrattles. In all, Nuclear Throne perfectly highlights the arcade elements with well thought out sound cues and music.
Hi-Fi Rush
It’s hard not to put some rhythm games on the list, but Hi-Fi Rush stands out in the genre regardless. Beat up some robots to the beat in this excellent mashup of the character action genre!
The way Hi-Fi Rush goes all-in on tying the music to the environment is truly wonderful and captivating. Every stage has a unique track that grows as you make progress, punctuated by rocking pistons and steaming vents as you make your way through factories on a corporate mega-campus.
The chances of another Hi-Fi Rush are very slim, but the varied soundtrack and stylish gameplay is sure to stick in your mind like an earworm!
Noita
From the second you open Noita you’re granted with reverberating wooden clacks, drums, and droning strings. Based on Finnish mythology, Noita pits you as a witch on a journey to complete the work of an alchemist, turning the world to gold.
The OST varies wildly from esoteric tones and percussion to finnish prog-rock and drum beats, all while staying cohesive and matching the tone perfectly. Noita’s soundscape is a true accomplishment, and it serves as the wallpaper to a fantastic roguelike that keeps you asking questions and exploring.
Receiver 2
Receiver 2 advertises itself as a gun simulator, which is true to an extent, but there’s so much more. You wake up on a familiar yet different cityscape rooftop with a gun, a tape player, and headphones. Your only explanation of the events that are unfolding are tapes you listen to to “ascend” your mind and break whatever mental curse is breaching our dimension.
Narrated by the low, dry tones of Leo Wiggins, attune your mind to the semi-buddhist, semi gun nut ideology of the receivers, pitting your own gun as a focus for your meditation. Complimented by a dynamic soundtrack in each stage, and bookended by a pleasant droning track, Receiver 2 is perfect to hone your ears.
Barotrauma
Something stirs in Europa’s abyssal sea, but humanity’s only choice is to dive deeper. In a game where you’re only guaranteed glimpses at the creatures of the abyss, your only other choice is to listen, and Barotrauma delivers.
In a campaign most of your time will be spent looking at the radar and listening to the pointed pinging it makes as you try to weave through cave walls, however, new sounds are rarely, if ever, welcome. Barotrauma drips into its sea of atmosphere with an effective dynamic soundtrack, marching you forward or keeping you on edge as your submarine suffers catastrophic hull breaches and power failures- just remember to make sure your crew are all on board before answering the knock outside the airlock.
Golden Light
Golden Light is weird, it looks weird, it feels weird, and it sounds weird. Suddenly you find yourself and your girlfriend sucked into a pit of writhing, crazed meat, and seemingly the only way out is to rebuild your girlfriend limb by limb.
When you enter the meat zone, your entrance is punctuated by an elevator playing a warped jazzy record, and you’ll come to find this comforting. In the halls of meat, mimics constantly blare loud sirens, quiet laughing, and pleas for death as you avoid every prop in your path. Between chapters your stay in the overworld is accompanied by a talking bike with a skull, whose radio plays short tracks of experimental and seemingly scrap music.
Golden Light is by all appearances strange, but if you take a moment to listen…. It’s still strange!
Teleglitch
You are trapped on a doomed space station, surrounded by very angry, very hungry military experiments, with a failed experiment collapsing the universe itself.
Teleglitch is very stark and quiet until it isn’t, the pitter patter of your character is complemented by roaring machinery, the shuffling of doors, and the cracking of gunfire. There is no soundtrack other than a few included mp3s in the files of teleglitch, and it’s a damn shame because they are thematically fitting and just need to be integrated with the gameplay to really make it pop. However, Teleglitch still stands testament to the sound building what you can’t see and complimenting what you can.
Atomicrops
Are the likes of Stardew Valley too relaxed for you? Would you rather a more dangerous form of farming? After the nukes fall, someone’s gotta do it!
Atomicrops takes the tried and true farming sim gameplay and splashes it with top down run n gun defense. The soundtrack is filled with rusty strings, crooked flutes, and grunting vocals to complete a backwoods hillbilly feeling, while enemies and weapons squeal, pop, and caw at you. Atomicrops is worth playing just for the lovingly put together sound design alone, and one of my favorite top-down shooters.
Darkwood
Take it slow, respect the woods, and watch your every step during the day. After that, hide in total silence in your safehouse, listening to each and every splitting twig, muted footfalls, and grunting things outside.
Darkwood drips with atmosphere from the very beginning, and the mystery around the darkwood itself only gets more compelling and strange. Not only are you constantly jumping at ghosts conjured by your mind just through sound, but the soundtrack itself just continues to paint a picture even out of the game. For the fans of horror, and even if you aren’t a fan, Darkwood is a top recommendation just from the mysterious vibes alone.
Devil Daggers
When I think of Devil Daggers, I think of crunching, smashing, the gnashing of teeth, and the scraping of metal on metal. Devil Daggers is a visceral experience for the heart and mind, turning your brain into pure gaming instinct to bunnyhop, time your daggers, and stay alive.
There’s little music to speak of in Devil Daggers, but fans of Nine Inch Nails will appreciate what’s there, and the sounds color and texture everything, as well as providing vital information offscreen. Devil Daggers is simple, but it thrives in simplicity with smart design and addictive gameplay.
Deadbolt
Who reaps the reaper? In a world filled with the undead, you are tasked to restore balance to life and return those lost souls where they came from.
Deadbolt is smokey, dry, and bittersweet in its musical themes. That isn’t to say the land of the dead is all sad pianoes and droning guitars, the musical range shown by Chris Christodoulou bounces between genres and time signatures, all the while making it look easy. There’s some hip hop beats, clubby dance tunes, jazzy guitars, and each song feels like it fulfills a purpose in Deadbolt’s world. If you have no interest in stealth gameplay, I highly recommend at least checking out the soundtrack.
Subnautica
Crashlanded on an ocean planet, you must dive deeper and deeper to cure yourself and find a way back to the stars. Subnautica is well-known as an indie survival success, and it’s well deserved. However, the audio rarely gets the praise it deserves.
There's a lot to hear under the waves, and I think it serves the horror elements way more than any scary fish can. Distant groans can be heard from massive critters, your suit’s AI can start giving some dangerous advice under the influence of an alien creature; and rarely does a game do underwater audio in a way that isn’t invasive or nauseating. Subnautica has a great soundtrack as well, and I couldn’t recommend it enough even if you don’t have ears.
Furi
Furi is one of the best boss rushes out there with a soundtrack that perfectly compliments it.
It’s hard to find something to say about Furi that hasn’t been sad time and time again, but the way its soundtrack integrates with each stage of each fight comes to mind. Each track progresses and changes to fit the theme of each phase, getting louder and more bombastic during bullet hell segments, to tense and close melee segments. Furi just has a damn good soundtrack all around, and it’s hard not to recommend it.
Sylvio
Sylvio is something of a cult classic with many flaws, but the way it delivers its story and the framing device of ghostly recordings is truly unique and interesting. Between puzzling and exploration, you are tasked with recording ghost voices- EVPS, and conducting seances while you work on finding your way out of the abandoned park. Sylvio is very flawed, but I implore you to give it a go in a dark, quiet room.
Signalis
I’m in love with the sounds of Signalis, and the fact that every other part of it is fantastic is just icing on the cake. Elster is on a search for her beloved Arianne on Rotfront, where something has seemingly gone horribly wrong. Robotic workers and fleshy appendages scream and writhe in pain while you utilize shortwave radio transmissions to solve puzzles in this love letter that often exceeds Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
Heavily influenced by The King In Yellow by Robert Chambers, Signalis delivers its story and atmosphere throughout cinematic and bombastic scenes between tense and gritty gameplay. I cannot recommend Signalis enough.
