Daniel Elms composed the original score for the Piccolo Studio game ‘After Us’. The game is available on PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X|S and Daniel’s original soundtrack was released in tandem with the game on Hot Salvation.
“Explore the corners of a surrealistic post-human world to give life on Earth a second chance in this touching story about sacrifice and hope.
Play as Gaia, the Spirit of Life, and navigate stunning platforming environments in an abstract world to salvage the souls of extinct animals. Revive these creatures after learning their final fate: the last whale harpooned, the final eagle caged, the last deer hunted down, and more, while you survive encounters with dangerous, oil-covered Devourers that roam the wasteland in search of remaining life.
In this emotional journey from the creators of the critically acclaimed Arise: A Simple Story, you alone can restore life to the planet.”
On composing the video game soundtrack, Daniel said: “The further I personally explored the game as a player, the more this idea grew to become the central pillar for what we set out to achieve as a whole. The tracks synchronise deeply with the environments, both figuratively and literally; the percussion in the factory levels, for example, was created almost entirely from field recordings of real-life industrial machines and mechanisms.
With the freedom to explore the evocation of a range of emotions, I wanted the music to travel hand in hand with the player. Joyful, sombre, reflective, thrilling, I wanted to look at the core of synthetic sounds, ground them in reality, and explore why they resonate with us so strongly in our visions for the future. The expressive science fiction synths that you hear as a result aren’t cold and unfeeling but have a real emotional heart, mirroring the core of ‘After Us’ and its unique storytelling.
Digital games are the frontier of communication and evocation; they are a global culture unto themselves and can be used as agents of expression, change, and compassion. At their best, games are deeply transformative experiences, unlike any other medium. From day one, my interest in ‘After Us’ was based upon the sincerity of its message, and in Piccolo Studio’s ambition to provoke self-reflection through the medium of games. The transportative game world and the sincerity of its story demand the same qualities to be present in the music. I could not be prouder of what we have achieved.”