The Grand Theft Auto games have always featured great radio stations. They’re one of the best parts of the games and have been happily filling my iPod for years. GTA V looks set to contnue the tradition. Rockstar have announced that it will feature 17 different radio stations and 240 tracks.
That’s not including the huge new score they’ve recorded that dynamically adapts to the character you’re playing as.
Other than releasing a names of a few of the stations and the those that will be hosting them, the soundtrack is being kept largely under wraps.
Rockstar are being a little more open about their first original score. Whenever you aren’t listening to the radio in a vehicle you’ll be treated to the game’s score. “It’s completely dynamic, and engineered very similar to what we’ve done in the past with our interactive stem system – it responds to what you’re doing with your character,” Rockstar’s soundtrack supervisor, Ivan Pavlovich, told Rolling Stone.
Pavlovich revealed that he score’s being composed by a collaboration of some pretty famous musicians: “We started with Tangerine Dream. We’ve used them before in terms of licensed music – we’re huge fans of Edgar Froese. When we started to think about who would be the right composer for this game, he was the first name that came to mind. Complementing his work we have Woody Jackson, who scored Red Dead Redemption and helped score L.A. Noire. Woody’s an amazing musician. And the third part of the triangle is Alchemist and Oh No.
Although each of these composers is used to define a character or an environment, what’s been interesting about this process is that it’s been the first fully collaborative score that we’ve done. Even though you may be triggering one score with a particular character or within a particular area in the world, you’re always hearing elements from the other composers. The first time you come into the country you’re blown away by Woody Jackson’s rock score, but within that you’re still hearing elements of Tangerine Dream, and Alchemist and Oh No. So you’re never too far away from this core sound that we’ve established for the game.”
It sounds pretty ace. Of course, we won’t know how effective it is until we can play it and until Rockstar announce GTA V for PC, we’re left at something of a loss.