Mass Effect 3 Score

Crazy story for you. I was happily sleeping. It was the first day of my vacation, and I was going to enjoy the luxury of being able to sleep in a few minutes before getting up to help my mother car shop (a trip that turned out to be more driving than actual shopping). Somewhere subconsciously, I heard my room mate get up and start getting ready to go to work, and I distinctly remember thinking ha ha. So, I wasn't necessarily sleeping, but somewhere between blissful sleep and waking up.

Then, I sat bolt upright, suddenly certain that Jack Wall wasn't doing the score for Mass Effect 3.


Entirely true story, I swear.  The night before, I was browsing around the web, trying to find a place I could purchase the score for the Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC. I managed to find a wonderful person on YouTube who had compiled the songs into a nice video with a link to download the album. Sadly, EA has not made this album available for purchase, despite the fact that the rest of the Mass Effect DLC albums are available for download. For those interested, click this link (click!).

Anyway, in the process of browsing, I happened to notice, just out of the corner of my eye, several headlines about Clint Mansell working on the score to Mass Effect 3. At the time, I wrote this off as hogwash. Of course Jack Wall would be returning for Mass Effect 3. His not returning would be like Marty Russell not returning for Halo 3, or John Williams not returning for Return of the Jedi. Preposterous.

Yet, there I was, sitting in bed with the certainty that Jack Wall was not, in fact, returning. It was a matter of seconds searching Google that I stumbled upon BioWare's forums where Jack Wall confirms that he will not be returning (and there's also a press release).

I suppose this has been common knowledge for a while now, but I am utterly insane about not reading anything about Mass Effect 3. I hate spoilers, and I don't want them for the conclusion of my favorite game ever.

So, where does this leave us, score-wise? Well, for whatever reason, we are out the brilliant mind that composed the amazing scores for the first two games. Whether you pay attention to music in video games or not, the score for the first two games has a significant impact on how we perceive and experience the Mass Effect universe. Imagine, if you will, going on the suicide mission in the second game and not having Jack Wall's epic orchestral backdrop to it. The impact of those moments might be so lessened as to make the whole experience moot.

Perhaps that's a bit of exaggeration, as the story and writing is wonderful too, but the amount of power Wall's score has infused in ME1 and ME2 is staggering. The fact that both stand alone as wonderful out-of-game listens also speaks volumes as well.

Most of the composers that are listed in the press release have worked with Mass Effect before via the various DLC, however, I'm concerned that without Wall at the helm, the third entry in the series will feel (at least musically) disconnected from the rest of the franchise. Given how important continuity is to the franchise as a whole...

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm a HUGE fan of Clint Mansell's scores for his various Hollywood projects (Smokin' Aces, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, The Fountain, etc., etc.), so at the very least, I'm glad that he was the one EA and BioWare decided to bring on board. I will also try have faith that he will remain accurate to his source material and work to compose a score that stays true to Wall's vision with the first two games. 

In the meantime, though, I'll be listening to the amazing scores for the first two games.