Starfield is arguably Bethesda Softworks’ most ambitious project to date. Offering players over 1,000 planets to explore, the scale of Starfield is immense; it’s fitting, then, that it was Bethesda’s biggest game launch of all time. Like with the studio’s other hits like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, Starfield offers players a huge amount of choice when it comes to how, when, and even if they complete its main story. The game took over seven years to make and, judging by studio head Todd Howard’s comments, was designed to be played for even longer.
Screen Rant’s review dubbed Starfield “an instant classic”, often citing the game’s ability to immerse players in its fictional universe as a distinct high point. To help achieve that through music, the game developers turned to a longtime Bethesda Softworks collaborator in composer Inon Zur. Zur’s prior works include Fallout 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Prince of Persia, and Crysis. For Starfield, Zur had to navigate making fiction feel like reality and crafting music that will fit playthroughs hundreds of hours long.
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Inon Zur spoke with Screen Rant about his work on Starfield, how the game is meant to be played, and more. Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Inon Zur On Starfield
Screen Rant: I saw that you came onto this project in 2016, so it’s almost a decade. How much did what the game was going to be change over that time?
Inon Zur: Well, a lot, because there was no game. There were some thoughts, some ideas, and maybe some art design, but nothing was really in place. It was mainly Todd’s dream to create a space game, [with] some of the philosophical ideas behind it, the questions behind it, [and] what it was going to be in a very general way. But Todd always says that he likes to bring the music in as soon as the actual idea is conceptualized, so the music can be born with the project. So, that’s what we did, and I’m a really strong supporter of this idea.
Yeah, I saw that you started composing from that conversation, or from concept art. Does that make it harder in any way?
Inon Zur: I mean, it is vague. You don’t get any gameplay, you don’t get any pictures, [and] you don’t get anything specific that you can really write to. I was starting to imagine what the music should sound like, but that’s actually something where you don’t really need to have the game; you just need to imagine the idea behind the game. It was, “What happens to a person when you throw them in space?”
There are three pillars. The first one is the awe. Its, “Wow, this thing is much bigger than anything I can even imagine.” Then comes the fear–almost terror–like, “What’s going to happen?” It’s totally unsafe; it’s unfamiliar. It’s, “I’m basically lost.” Then, the third pillar is the excitement: “Okay, but this is a huge opportunity for me to conquer, to discover, [and] to explore. It’s all new, and it’s just waiting for me.” Taking these three pillars and trying to imagine how music should sound supporting them was the first driver for me of how to approach the music.
It’s a huge science fiction game set in space, but it’s not a space opera like Mass Effect or Star Wars or something. How does the realism of the world affect how you approach the music?
Inon Zur: When it’s a space opera, you score it all very, very symphonic. It’s drama, and it’s very clear that this is a tale. WIth Starfield, the approach was a little bit more down-to-earth; almost realistic. We had to create an environment that you feel happens here and now, but hundreds of years from now. The combination, and how to go about it, was quite a challenge when it came to doing everything including composing music.
You have a horn featured often, you have some synth patches, and I don’t know if you have a choir or synths that sound like vocals. Can you talk about how you landed on the signature instruments that you did?
Inon Zur: In order to create this environment that’s on one hand realistic, but on the other hand futuristic, I somehow had to take the traditional orchestral sound and mash it together with sound design and synths. So, you [never] hear only synthetic music or only orchestral music; it’s always some kind of a combination, and in most cases, it’s even hard to tell which is which. I had to, for example, take the horn that tells more of the emotional story and support it with more electronic or technological sounds to give you a more grounded feeling. In other instances, the synth was the lead, but the orchestra was what really drove it. [It was] always a combination between the sound design that makes stuff little bit more realistic sci-fi, and the orchestra that supports more of the narrative and the emotional aspect of it and the storyline.
I really liked the track “The Sol System”. How did you want to approach touching on the future history of Earth and the solar system? Was that a different approach from the rest of the game?
Inon Zur: It was a different approach because I had to write something that maybe is reminiscent of what used to be but create a lot of musical altercations that will tell you [that] right now, it’s very, very different, [and] hostile. Yes, there are some reminiscences of the history that used to be there, but right now, it feels very, very different. Again [it was] finding the balance between something reminiscent of the history but altering it to create something that will tell you, “Wait a second. We’re definitely not in Kansas.”
I was scrolling on IMDb and from the start of 2016 to now, as you were presumably working on Starfield, I saw 22 video games or expansions, plus TV work. What was it like to have this project hanging over your head while you were trying to manage other ones?
Inon Zur: Work is work, but Starfield always had a very special place in my heart and in the attention that I gave it. Not that I did not give all the attention I needed to other projects; in fact, some of the projects that I wrote during Starfield are very near and dear to my heart, like Syberia: The World Before. But Starfield was so different that it was such fun to suddenly dive back in there, forget about everything else, and just go back to this magical and humongous world. I was looking forward to it every time.
The game obviously had stages. It’s not that I’m working every day for seven years on the game; it could be six months that I won’t touch it, because the game is in one development stage and we’re waiting for it to be completed before moving to the next stage. Coming back, for example, after six months, revisiting it, and listening to what I did before set an interesting perspective and depth on what I did, and how I could take what I did and apply it from another angle. I think that’s one of the things that is really giving Starfield, and the score of Starfield, the depth that it has; because it took those years to develop.
I see many people playing Starfield and sort of zooming through it, and I think it’s going to take time for people really to appreciate everything that Starfield has to offer. It’s not like a ‘bang, bang’ game–not at all. I don’t know what people were expecting when they played the game, but it’s a game that you’re building a relationship with. You treat it, and it treats you back. It’s an ever-developing universe and, in fact, we are already working on lots of new content that is going to be inserted into Starfield. Imagine that we created a world, but now we’re starting to build stuff inside this huge world so that the level and the span of creativity in what’s going to happen in Starfield… we’ve just begun.
Is there anything you can say about what’s coming other than that? I don’t know if you can be specific.
Inon Zur: Really awesome.
[Laughs] Okay. I was listening to the soundtrack on Spotify, which is five and a half hours long. If you were to do, like, a vinyl Collector’s Edition, which I’ve seen people ask about, how do you choose the tracks? Do you have favorites?
Inon Zur: It’s such a weird thing because sometimes I listen to a track that I [wouldn’t] think is something that I like, and it’s like, “Wow. I really like it,” and then I will listen to a track [where] it’s like, “I always thought that I loved it, and now some other tracks are growing on me more.” Although it is five and a half hours, each track got a lot of specific attention to carve and to create something that is unique on its own. Yes, many tracks have, for example, the theme, or many tracks have a similar soundscape, but each track has its unique thematic material, elements, and other things. That’s the thing about Starfield; it’s just a lot, and you cannot really absorb everything in such a short time.
You’ve done so much work with Bethesda. Are you ever tempted to put musical ties between these games, like taking part of a theme from Fallout and changing the instrumentation so it doesn’t sound like it’s Fallout?
Inon Zur: I would say no, but since I am the composer, my signature [and] my sound, probably even without me wanting it or controlling it, travels between and create connections. This is just an example, it’s not as if I’m comparing myself to him, but if you listen to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park, [these are] three very different universes, but you can hear lots of ties because it’s the same composer. It’s the style and the way the composer sees stuff, and treats elements in a musical way. So, I’m sure that there are connections.
You’ve lived with this game for so long and, I imagine, talked about it a lot. Is there anything that people haven’t picked up on that you are proud of or excited about?
Inon Zur: Again, this is very individual, because some people like this area of the game [and] some people like this area of the game. The only thing I can say is that you need to play the game again and again and again to really hone in on what you like. I heard [about] people that started and played it and, after 80 hours or whatever, they finished the game, but to me, to finish the game doesn’t mean that they really experienced what Starfield had to offer yet. There are other elements that you need to dive into and develop that you cannot really do when you [just] finish the game.
I would say to players: Go out and explore. Don’t treat Starfield as something that you need to start and finish. Imagine that this is a world that you live in right now, and you live with, and this is where you go and you escape, and this is where you build your home, and this is where you create friends and enemies and relationships. This is the right way to treat Starfield, [as opposed to] a movie that you watch from beginning to end. It’s a very different approach in order to maximize what Starfield has to offer.
Thank you so much. My favorite parts of Starfield so far have just been walking around and hearing the music; hearing it play along with the visuals is amazing.
Inon Zur: Thank you so much. I can’t take all the credit–only half of the credit–because of the implementation by Mark Lambert, who is the audio director at Bethesda. That’s what’s maximizing the potential of the music inside the game. This is a part of the whole experience, so knowing what to do with the music and how to work with the music is what makes it really shine.
About Starfield
Bethesda Game Studios presents Starfield – the first original IP from the studio in twenty-five-plus years. Set in the year 2310, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective are observing a shaky truce after a war set 20 years prior. The player will customize their character as a member of a space exploration team called Constellation while navigating The Settled Systems and the conflicts between the warring factions. Players can explore over 100 systems and 1000 planets to find resources and build their ships, living out their own sci-fi journeys.
Starfield
- Platform(s):
- PC, Xbox Series X/S
- Released:
- 2023-09-06
- Developer(s):
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s):
- Bethesda Softworks
- Genre(s):
- Open-World, RPG, Sci-Fi
- ESRB:
- M
- Summary:
- Bethesda Game Studios presents Starfield – the first original IP from the studio in twenty-five-plus years. Set in the year 2310, the United Colonies and Freestar Collective are observing a shaky truce after a war set 20 years prior. The player will customize their character as a member of a space exploration team called Constellation while navigating The Settled Systems and the conflicts between the warring factions. According to Bethesda, players can explore over 100 systems and 1000 planets to find resources and build their ships, living out their own sci-fi journeys.
