The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is on everybody’s mind these days, and for good reason. It’s an open world RPG that not only lives up to such hype that it is being compared to games like Red Dead Redemption, one of the last generation in gaming’s most heralded titles.

If you’ve played it, then you’ve most definitely heard the epic, bombastic score that swells underneath the player as Geralt traverses Griffin-plagued lands in search of Yennefer.

The man behind that score is the talented and versatile Mikolai Stroinski, who was kind enough to answer some questions about the skill set involved in scoring video games, how themes evolve over the course of production, and what projects are on the horizon.

BD: You have a variety of credits under your belt. How do you approach working in television differently than video games?

It’s a completely different world and an entirely different approach. Usually in the television business the deadlines are very short and therefore the pace of work tends to be faster. I have to say that hours of practicing jazz improvisation really comes in handy here – so do the keyboard shortcuts.

Television and film music is all about composing in a linear fashion, meaning the music that plays is not likely to get repeated, much like the scene that it supports. In the world of video games, on the other hand, the pace is much more relaxed with deadlines further into the future. For example, I am just starting a project where the deadline for music delivery is November 2016 which is far enough to let me hopefully come up with something meaningful.

However, the challenge with video game music is making it interactive – in other words, allowing for instant changes in the music which are triggered depending on the actions on the screen. This might mean entering a new area or engaging in a battle and so on. The timing of those events cannot be planned because it depends on how fast the player moves and performs actions on the screen. This requires a composer to build a musical cue from moveable cells which when put together create an artistic whole.

BD: How does the medium of video games require a different skill set than, say, TV?

First and foremost it requires a solid history of playing video games which enables you to get into the player’s chair at any moment and understand the realms of this medium. The element of interactive music has to be comprehended as should the knowledge of the software that takes care of it (called middleware). Video game music has a different pace and narration – just listen to soundtracks from both media and you may subconsciously sense what I’m talking about. A piece of music from a movie might go to a completely different musical place towards the end because that is where the scene that it’s attached to takes it. Generally speaking, a video game music piece will therefore be more stable in terms of musical development.

In TV you need to have a different set of chops – being able to deliver quickly with high production values is one of them. In both cases the more you know about music – the better equipped you are.

BD: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which you scored, and The Witcher 3 have vastly different aural characteristics. How does the individual project influence what instrumentation and leitmotifs you’ll employ?

Those choices are made based on experiences in the actual genre coupled with some instinct. The Witcher has a unique color spectrum that comes from the incorporated Slavic sound but it is still a roleplaying fantasy game. So instruments like woodwinds and the string section will naturally lay themselves well into the sound palette. Ethan Carter had some horrifying elements which was an impulse for me to use darker colors while maintaining the exploration element. The leitmotif had to reflect that coupled with the boy’s innocence and beautiful nature that surrounds the story.

BD: Going from the Dark Souls 2 trailer to Ethan Carter, then Wild Hunt rounds out a pretty interesting set of credits. How do you go about choosing your projects?

In the case of Ethan Carter and The Witcher 3, I knew they were going to be great projects. I was invited to pitch for them and luckily for me I won. In the case of Dark Souls 2, I was just invited to score the trailer and had no idea whatsoever how huge this project was. Only after seeing the audience’s reaction to the trailer on SPIKE TV I realized that I took part in something really special, which was then confirmed by the fan following my piece has gathered me. I like to take part in projects that I would enjoy as a player or a viewer or those that give me an opportunity to write meaningful music.

BD: How much time with the actual game do you get when you compose? Are you given demos of the game being played, or does the developer bring you into the studio, or is it a combination of both?

I often get a working copy of the game somewhere in the middle of the process of composing the music for it. It almost always starts though with a couple of screenshots and conversation with a producer who tells me the whole story. I must say I really like this method because I use my imagination as a source rather than picture so it might give unexpected but very often suitable results.

BD: What methods do you use for developing your basic running themes in a soundtrack? Do you build the orchestral elements on top of a basic melody, or vice versa?

For Ethan Carter I composed the main theme (that you hear at the end of the game) at my piano. I then “disassembled” the piece, took elements of it and used them to compose some other pieces in the game, therefore giving the game its melodic identity. With The Witcher 3 a couple of themes came lingering from the previous installments of the series and a couple I invented while working on the new game. I composed these new themes with the string section in mind mostly. Naturally if a game needs a certain instrument I compose a theme that fits its capabilities. I can’t really say whether the melody or the orchestra comes first. It differs from one score to another.

BD: The Witcher 3 is quite an expansive game. Some estimates place it at over 100 hours of gameplay. Does that make creating a score more challenging?

Yes, obviously a project like that requires you to physically generate more music, and keeping in mind that it is an epic journey – the music has to be epic, which takes even more time to produce especially if you want the music to be interactive.

BD: Do you, for example, think constantly about how the repeating melodies will connect with the player? How does that affect your musical approach?

This is an excellent question. Yes! I need to plan how many times a piece of music will be repeating so that the melody I compose won’t become annoying. However I still want it to be meaningful and not accidental. What becomes helpful is the fact that if a piece repeats it may do so without the instruments that play the melody which makes it more effective when it finally comes back. Melody is not always the best tool – sometimes, especially in situations where a player needs to focus on solving a problem and make more active use of his or her brain, it’s better to leave the melody out because it draws too much attention.

BD: Which portions of a game score are the most fun to work on: the big, bombastic moments, with lots of varied and chaotic instrumentation, or the quieter sections?

Overall I prefer writing more intimate music – it usually serves a more directed purpose and gives me an opportunity to adjust small but meaningful details of sound. The bigger you get with music the more details you lose. The fact that you called it chaotic sustains my way of thinking. It really shouldn’t be chaotic at all – clarity is the single most important goal in music composition. It takes time to achieve it and also for me is very often a challenging task.

All of the above is not to say that I don’t like to write bombastic music. I was fortunate to be scoring Ethan Carter and The Witcher 3 together at the same time. After a couple of intimate cues it was really refreshing to use some explosive colors for combat cues.

BD: How complete was Wild Hunt when you began working on the score? Music is so driven by feel, at least in my experience. Is it challenging to work on a project like a video game, one that takes years from conception to completion?

I think it was a year and a half to two years into production when I joined the team. The direction of music had already been established so there weren’t many changes during the process. The fact that the music is driven by the feel, as you kindly said, is the result of everything I said earlier. This is the gamer part in me that helps achieve it as well as the interactivity of the score.

BD: What genre of game or film or television really inspires you right now? Are there any projects or game types that you’d like to tackle in the coming years?

I don’t actually have a specific favorite. Ultimately though, I want to do projects that I would enjoy as a receiver. Producers do their best to make those projects awesome which naturally allows them to be accompanied with good music. I think we can equally enjoy a good historical piece as well as a futuristic science fiction… A good horror or an action shooter or something that tells the story with a bit slower tempo. The story is always the key here and the assumption that the gamers as well as the viewers have sophisticated taste. Those are the projects I’m looking for.

BD: What projects do you have coming up? Is there anything you are excited to be working on, or that you’d like to announce?

I currently have three video games and two TV series lined up; however, I can’t reveal the titles just yet.

You can hear examples of Stroinski’s work on his SoundCloud account. The score for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or his web site, MikolaiStroinski.com.