Music by Mikolai Stroinski
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter wins Best Score — Orchestral / Cinematic in Annual Game Music Awards 2014
Sumthing Else Music Works announced the worldwide digital release of THE VANISHING OF ETHAN CARTER – Original Soundtrack featuring the original score from the breathtakingly atmospheric first-person mystery game focused on exploration and discovery. Created by jazz and classically-trained Polish composer Mikolai Stroinski (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Dark Souls 2 trailer), the game’s evocative music soundtrack will be available digitally from Sumthing.com, iTunes, Amazon and other digital music sites on January 27.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter soundtrack has garnered numerous accolades for its immersive and ethereal emotional quality including nominations for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition at the 18th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards and Best Audio at the 15th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.
Describing his process for finding the musical voice for Ethan Carter, Mikolai Stroinski explains, “I’m a pianist. Through improvisation I was trying to come up with a central theme that would capture the story of Ethan Carter. I was planning on orchestrating it once approved. As it turned out, The Astronauts loved it so much they didn’t want to add anything. And so it stayed. If you listen closely to the melodic pieces from the score, you will notice that each one is a variation of ‘Ethan’s Theme’. It borrows either the melodic shape, or the rhythms or the distinguishing melodic intervals.”
Developed by Polish indie game development studio The Astronauts, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a “weird fiction” horror focused on atmosphere, mood and the essential humanity of its characters. With its mixture of a beautiful world with the haunting and macabre, the game is catered to immersive storytelling for adult players.
You play as Paul Prospero, an occult-minded detective who receives a disturbing letter from Ethan Carter. Realizing the boy is in grave danger, Paul arrives at Ethan’s home of Red Creek Valley, where things turn out to be even worse than he imagined. Ethan has vanished in the wake of a brutal murder, which Paul quickly discerns might not be the only local murder worth looking into.
Experience in non-linear fashion, a story that combines the pleasures of pulp, private eye and horror fiction inspired by writers such as Raymond Chandler, Algernon Blackwood, Stefan Grabiński, and H. P. Lovecraft. Explore and interact with the beautiful yet ominous world of Red Creek Valley, which was created with the use of revolutionary photogrammetry technology that allows for nearly photorealistic environments.
