
Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games broadcasted a question & answers session with single player campaign Squadron 42 composer Geoff Zanelli.

Zanelli is a well-known name in Hollywood, having composed the score of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film Dead Men Tell No Tales and having worked with Hans Zimmer on scoring the previous movies of the popular series, alongside a ton more film, TV series and even a few video games since 1997.

Quite interestingly, Zanelli talks about the music logic that is being developed for the game, set to play the right music in response to the players’ actions and the situation they’re in at any given time. Every track is composed so that it can seamlessly transition into another. The engine recognizes whether players are fighting, they’re outnumbered, they’re winning, losing, or more, and can set the music to be grim, heroic, ambient, or any other tone that will underline the scene in the right way. There are multiple variations of many tracks to fit each situation.

Basically, if you’re winning, the music will “reward you.” According to Zanelli, the goal is for the music logic engine to make the same decision that he would make as a composer. He is being “as ambitious with the music as Chris [Roberts] is with the game.”

We also hear that while the music used in the latest demo was not recorded with an orchestra, what will be in the final game will be played by a “massive orchestra.”

Zanelli also mentions that as of now he has written “three to three hours and a half” of music for the game, and there is more to come. Considering that he has not yet written music related to the Vanduul aliens, we can definitely expect that number to increase.

You can check the whole recording of the broadcast below. If you want to see more of Squadron 42, you can enjoy the spectacular vertical slice of the single-player campaign, and a version of the same footage with commentary from the developers, a teaser featuring Mark Hamill. You can also read more about the plans for the next major update, that will be alpha 3.1 in March.

For the sake of full disclosure, you should keep in mind that the author of this post is a backer of Star Citizen.