Trek to Yomi
When you boot up Trek to Yomi, a title card appears alongside a credit reading ‘a game by Leonard Menchiari and Flying Wild Hog.’ Years before the Polish studio behind the Shadow Warrior reboot series began to collaborate on the project — before Devolver Digital took an interest as publisher — Trek to Yomi was one man’s love letter to the black and white samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Over the course of its development, the ambitious action game took on many partners but stuck to the original promise of authenticity.
As early as 2019, Menchiari was already beginning to figure out what he wanted Trek to Yomi to sound like. That year in Tokyo, he first met with Cody Matthew Johnson and Yoko Honda, the collaborators that would eventually become the game’s composers. Honda, the game's music director, reflects on this first encounter.
“I was there since the early stages of conception of the game, not necessarily as a recruited music director or composer,” Honda recalled. “Cody [Matthew Johnson] and I met the director Leonard Menchiari at the Tokyo Game Show in 2019 and I was determined that I wanted to be involved as soon as Leonard showed us his ideas.”
Johnson (who’s recent output includes contributions to the Devil May Cry V and Resident Evil 2 soundtracks) worked alongside Honda and a team of engineers and editors at Emperia Sound and Music to make a soundtrack that was authentic, first and foremost. Trek to Yomi employs a film grain and black and white visual filter evocative of Kurosawa’s earlier work, but the roots go much deeper than the 1940s. The game aims for historical accuracy and period authenticity with its soundscape dating back to the 17th century.
All the music in Trek to Yomi was created using instruments
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