Witcher 3 composer Mikolai Stroinski begins work on each game by ‘going on a date’

polygon.com:

In 2015, The Witcher 3 established developer CD Projekt Red as one of the world’s best AAA game studios, and Mikolai Stroinski — one of the game’s composers — established himself as one of the strongest musical talents in the industry. Having contributed to League of Legends, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and others, he’s made a career of working in a wide variety of genres.

Speaking to Polygon as part of our week-long look at the crossover of games and music, Polygon FM, Stroinski recently talked about being influenced by games such as Manic Miner and Medal of Honor, his work on the futuristic noir detective game Nobody Wants to Die, and his process when figuring out how to compose music for a game.

Was there a game soundtrack or song that inspired you to pursue creating game music? Can you set the scene of what that felt like for you, and why the music was so effective?

Actually there were two tracks that entered my subconscious and probably steered me to where I’ve been going in terms of my career. The very first one was the music for Manic Miner. I must have been 6 years old or so when I played that game on Spectrum ZX. The music I heard then was a rendition of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. Back then I found it very catchy and working well for the gameplay I was experiencing. I remember realizing that video game music can be a great experience, even though it was 1985 or so…

The even bigger and more conscious impact on me was made by Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack for Medal of Honor. What a feast of remarkable themes that is! The melodies, the orchestration, no pompous overscoring and oversized orchestra, just music creating perfect emotions. The very special one I remember was the track called “Arnhem”, which despite being very sweet and emotional, was superimposed over a very intense battle. Due to the contrast it created, the player was imbued with a feeling of sadness and sorrow over all the lives being lost in the gruesome WW2. I