Finishing Move Inc On Scoring Doom: The Dark Ages: 'It Felt Impossible'

Forbes

a day ago

Doom: The Dark Ages marked a departure for the franchise in myriad ways. Combat was slower and more tactical; the typically futuristic setting was swapped out for a medieval realm with gothic castles and mountains and the level design was much wider. There was also a change in the music department too.
Composer of Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal (2020) Mick Gordon was replaced. Tasked instead with adding to the Doom franchise's iconic list of soundtracks was Finishing Move Inc, a band known for working on Borderlands 3 (2019) and The Callisto Protocol (2022).
The group was founded in 2013 by Brian Lee White and Brian Trifon who had been scoring commercials for several years already. The pair teamed together and began working on video games and movie trailers, eventually adding Jay Wiltzen and Alex Klingle to the mix.
Within just two days of The Dark Ages' release, the soundtrack reached number two on Apple's iTunes chart. I sat down with three of the four band members - White, Trifon and Klingle - to discuss their process of putting the game's music together.
BLW: It felt like an impossible task. The music for the last two games was beloved. The Bobby Prince stuff for the series in the nineties is iconic. We were stepping into large shoes.
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ID Software wanted us to take this in a new direction. It's got a new setting and this is a prequel. The gameplay style is different too and so they wanted a more cinematic approach to the music but keeping it metal. They lovingly referred to the music as a rock orchestra instead of a rock band which is what you heard in previous games. Our score is a little more spacious. We used a traditional orchestra with instruments and a choir while still bringing that heavy metal vibe.
A balalaika
AK: We approached it from a few angles. We looked at medieval folk instruments and grabbed influences from different cultures around the world. We used something called a tagelharpa which is a northern European folk instrument. It sounds like a cello or violin if it had more hair on its chest. It gives this brutal and primal vibe that fit Doom's world well.
Then we used a Russian Soviet era instrument called a balalaika that I found in a dusty old shop in Florence, Italy. It has this haunting sound when tuned a little lower. There's also a beautiful tribal drum that's made by artesans in the Quebecan mountains. It gave us a deep pounding pulse.
We also dove into older styles of metal that evoked a sinister and ancient quality. Those albums from the early roots of heavy metal in the early 70s are about running to the hills and going into battle, slaying demons. Lastly we looked at sinister harmonies. Classical composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninoff had this dark quality with a tinge of beauty to them. That really captured the essence of the dark ages and the medieval world.
BLW: We're also dealing with much larger spaces in this game. The maps are massive and the arenas are really big so we wanted to capture that by making the sound more cinematic with longer tails and more reverb on the drums.
BLW: We spoke about pacing and structure for the music from day one. Hugo [Martin, game director at ID Software] used an analogy; if Eternal made you feel like a Ferrari, in The Dark Ages you're a Sherman tank. It's this grounded stand and fight game. The traversal is not the same here so you're not doing vertical movements. It's much heavier. So we asked 'how do we make the music heavy and brutal while still feeling like this crazy power fantasy but not necessarily representing that with insane speed?'
Finishing Move Inc previously worked on Halo Wars 2
BLW: All of us are gamers and have been for a long time. My introduction into modern gaming was through Wolfenstein (1992) and the original Doom (1993). I was too young to be playing it but I'd go over to a friend's house and it'd be on their parents' computer. It was absolutely revolutionary. I play a lot of modern games but my heart is in vintage gaming as that's what I grew up with. Working on Doom 30 years later is incredible.
BT: This keeps happening though. We've been involved with Halo, Microsoft Flight Simulator and now Doom. Those all are games that first came out when I was a freshman. Halo and Xbox were cultural touch points for me then. My youngest memories on a computer was at my grandparents house playing Flight Sim. Then with Doom I convinced my mom to buy a family PC to play it. Being able to contribute to these franchises as an adult is insane.
AK: I've grown up with games my whole life too. Like Brian Trifon, Doom is something my parents did not let me have but I'd go to a friends' house and play. It was the same with Halo. My parents always read the age ratings on the box.
AK: It's so fun to work on a game when it's a long term project. A movie trailer requires a very brief turnaround and then it's done. A game can involve talks for years. With Doom, the cues we wrote a few years ago ended up being different to what's come out in the end. Allowing ideas to cook in the oven for that long meant they could develop naturally. It's such a rewarding experience.
BLW: Most of the touch points a young audience will have today is going to be from a video game. You play a game for 50 or 100 hours and the music gets embedded into your brain. As a kid, I'd rinse my favourite albums but people don't do that so much anymore. With a game you have to be present. For many, the music in games has actually become their entry point into music generally. I won't be surprised if there's young people who find their first encounter with metal sounds through Doom.
BT: My kids' favourite music is in games. I try to play bands of all styles to them but they don't like that. Music in the Zelda and Mario games is what they love. That's what they're exposed to. That's where they make an emotional connection to it. It's hard to get them to sit through a TV episode or a whole movie (unless it's the Minecraft movie) but video games is where they're connecting deeply and wanting to then play the songs they hear on a piano.
Brian Trifon was inspired by Nine Inch Nails
AK: It's different for each of us. We all have our own specialities and tastes that we bring. For me, I've got one foot in the modern era and another in the traditional. I actually like a lot of electronic music. I love synthesisers and forward-thinking artists on the cutting edge, like Noisia. But then I also love going back to orchestral and classical music with a darker edge that has this little beauty to it too.
BLW: The common thread amongst all four of us is that we started our musical journey as teenage dirtbag guitar kids trying to tap. We all discovered electronic music later on too. That's why we can do so many styles. The thing we all share is a love for different types of music, specifically guitar based stuff and electronic sound design.
BT: My background is the same. I was die hard about guitars and metal. I hated synthesisers but at some point I heard Nine Inch Nails. I saw them live and thought they were so heavy. It started the process of expanding my ears.
Like Alex and Brian, I had a career in electronic music for a while. At some point you start to ask if you believe in the essence of what an artist is doing when you're analysing or listening to them. It's not even about instrumentation or style; it's about whether they're doing something you can identify with. For me, that's what I've come to care about.
BLW: We've worked on a lot of dream franchises so maybe we're pushing our luck, but Call of Duty has always been an iconic game that's up there with Halo and Doom for me. That'd be rad to work on at some point.
AK: Mine would never happen as I doubt there'll be another game, but I'd love to work on Bloodborne 2. I love FromSoft. It has the coolest, darkest vibe.
BT: For me, I'd love to work on a Metroid game.