Disturbing Video Game Music #12: Ephyra Streets I (Gears of War)

Описание: Though games such as WinBack and Kill Switch predated the cover shooter genre years before, with its environments designed specifically around the cover mechanic, Gears of War helped to popularize it and was a massive success upon its release, being one of Microsoft’s defining franchises at their peak of success during the XBOX 360 days. Though its graphics have not aged greatly by modern standards, Gears of War was an incredible shooter with an equally good plot to match.

A long time ago, an alien race known as the Locust began their attack on humanity during an event known as “Emergence Day” - the Coalition of Ordered Governments, alongside their soldiers (or “Gears”), took action and remained as the only human government left on Earth fourteen years later. Playable character and main protagonist Marcus Fenix, alongside his troops, goes on a mission to find the “resonator” that’ll help to map the caverns the Locust emerged from, and eventually destroy the Locust entirely.

Of course, this will not be an easy mission - and the game goes out of its way to show just how much of a hellscape the Earth has become ever since Emergence Day. In the second act of the game, Nightfall, Marcus and his troops are instructed to take the resonator to a factory located near the streets of Ephyra; however, night has already fallen by the time they get there, which is a certified death sentence for anybody unprepared as the Kryll, a kind of Locust that attacks in swarms, are especially active during dusk hours and will tear apart anybody they find - the only thing that drives them away is the light.

With how stressful and chaotic the entirety of the Act is, it makes sense for the ambient pieces to be equally as scary - and though I could just as easily choose any of them, Ephyra Streets I is the piece that personally came across to me as being the creepiest overall.