Soundtrack reveal: The Make Believes

Hi everyone,

Ever since we revealed We Happy Few’s introduction at E3 in 2016, we have had many questions about the music and soundtrack in We Happy Few. This is something we have kept quiet and very close to our hearts for a long time, waiting for the right time to reveal it. Today, we are excited to finally talk about it and the amazing musicians behind the original soundtrack!

First, if you’ve seen our trailers, you’ve also heard a different kind of music, something similar to a boy band out of the 1960s. And you would be right!

We put together a tailor-made boy band to pay tribute to the swinging sounds of the ‘60s specifically for We Happy Few. The band is called The Make Believes, which may sound familiar to you if you’ve played our Early Access and followed the adventures of Nick Lightbearer.

Just like we did with Uncle Jack, we wanted to work with local artists, so our audio partners Signal Space suggested we work with several musicians based here in Montreal. We are delighted to introduce the members of the Make Believes:

Murray A. Lightburn - Lead Vocals, Guitar, Bass (The Dears, thedears.org)

Brad Barr - Lead Vocals, Guitar (The Barr Brothers, thebarrbrothers.com)

Andrew Barr - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals (The Barr Brothers, thebarrbrothers.com)

Patrick Watson - Lead Vocals, Keyboards (patrickwatson.net)

These guys are huge names in the Montreal and Canada scene, and separately they have created astonishing music going back a long time. Together, the Make Believes songs are unique, captivating, and something we’re very proud to be able to reveal. We want to encourage everyone to check out their other music as well, because frankly, it’s awesome.

Second, we have the gameplay score, composed by Nicolas Marquis. We first worked with Nic on Contrast, and we’ve loved working with him again on We Happy Few. Nic is responsible for all the beautiful atmospheric music in our game, from the ambient music in the Garden District to underground music and other 60s inspired tracks . He wrote the procedural music that we use during suspicion and combat, and when you’re on or off Joy. Basically, all of that good minute to minute stuff is from Nic. He also wrote two blog posts on his music process, inspirations and about the authentic 1960s instruments he used while composing, which you can check out here and here. Nic also composed our stingers and a few cinematics.

Third, we have cinematic music composed by Jon Licht, who helped to make sure that the emotional tone of our cinematics was just right. His was the latest and last contribution to the music, once we finished up our cinematics and were ready for scoring. These don’t make much sense without the dialogue and SFX, so you’ll have to experience them in-game (and not in the soundtrack).

The digital soundtrack is currently available for purchase at the Gearbox Store and it comes bundled with a couple of digital goodies such as ringtones, 4k and phone Wallpapers. This bundle will also be available on Steam at launch. As for physical copies, the only one available is the vinyl that comes with the Time Capsule.

We are really excited to share the soundtrack with you all. Like everything else in the game, it has been crafted with care and love over a long period of time, and we hope you’ll enjoy it!

Compulsion Games

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