How do you craft a soundtrack that supports your game's story if you don't know what the story will be?

That's something CCP Games' Baldur Baldursson (and Erkitonlist founder Kjartan Olafsson) dug into at GDC 2016, during a fascinating talk about how the soundtrack of CCP's massively multiplayer space game EVE Online was designed to intelligently complement the actions a player takes.

The pair spoke of the need to create music in real-time based on what's actually happening in-game, describing the process of creating their intelligent music system CALMUS (Calculated Music), how it works, and how EVE Online makes use of the system (alongside Wwise as audio engine).

It was a fascinating talk, especially if you're at all interested in the challenges of intelligently generating music to match a player's actions across a massive, multiplayer game. Now, you can watch Baldursson and Olafsson's talk completely free over on the official GDC Vault YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas