Debate: Which videogame songs are best for unwinding after a long day?
And, relax.
Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!
So after months of living exclusively out of my Liked Songs folder and Spotify Radio, I finally went ahead and made a brand-new playlist a few weeks ago. One that could serve as the perfect ambience for my day-to-day life: working, cooking, cleaning, and unwinding with a glass of wine and my Steam Deck.
And what better fodder for my super chill, super relaxing playlist than videogame music? After all, its entire purpose is to create ambience. It's vibes personified. Instead of telling you how it's feeling, it's trying to tell you how you should feel. Ooh, don't you feel so fuzzy and nostalgic as I play the flute in this quaint woodland village? Isn't the sul ponticello on this violin making you scared? You get my point.
I have long championed soft piano pieces from JRPGs as the ultimate relaxation music, but I've found myself branching out to some less likely candidates as of late. The Minecraft soundtrack has been absolutely rinsed in my household over these last few weeks—one that I feel makes some sense—but I've also really been digging Danganronpa's library of tunes.
Yeah, I know, the anime murder game. Wait, wait! When there's not a dead body or life-or-death trial being a real party pooper, it's a trilogy of games stuffed with some surprisingly dreamy pieces. A little soft jazz number, a little ambient sound. It's a soundtrack that's so hard to pin under one genre, but tracks like Danganronpa 2's Beautiful Ruin (Summer Salt) and Danganronpa V3's Cool Morning have become my new go-to wind-down tracks.
But what about you? If you're seeking out some videogame music to destress to, which composer, videogame, or specific tracks are you reaching for? Do you reach for the cosy nostalgia of games like Old School RuneScape and Skyrim, or is your playlist flooded with twinkly farming sim songs?
Tell us about your go-to relaxing videogame music in the comments, and why you think it's so darn good.
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Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.
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