Greg Miller

They're so damn talented.

Holiday Silk Song, like, just doubling down on what Andy's saying.

Like, the score of that game is...

utterly phenomenal like it is more than just atmosphere and vibes it it does everything it needs to at every single moment like it creates the perfect kind of like bow on a package of like oh this is like a perfect video game in so many ways and i it just always makes you feel the way you need to and a lot of the music you can listen to outside of the game but it functions even better in the game and i always think that that's an important thing to keep in mind

For me, it is Expedition 33 that takes this away because not only is this a new composer that we haven't heard before, knocking it out of the park for the first time, what Andy's talking about, the various instrumentation and genres and all that, but I always talk about musicals and can you listen to the soundtrack of the musical and know the story and know what's going on?

I feel like...

uh with expedition 33 it's not a musical that's a different thing but you can understand the emotion and of the story of that game through just listening to the soundtrack and the vocalists the the main female vocalists and the main male vocalists that are on so many of the tracks are so incredibly talented and the way that in so many of the songs they're fighting back and forth and it it almost doesn't sound good because it sounds like raw

She's representing this.

He's representing this.

It's literally a fight between two characters.

They're representing these characters and that stuff is so fucking powerful.

Like expedition 33 for me.

The audio design, Hollow Knight deserves a shout-out for sound design, absolutely.

Yeah, and the last thing I want to say about Hades, you reminded me, because I was mainly talking about the latter half of the game, but without spoiling stuff, the second boss in that game, the lead up to the second boss and then the second boss itself, that alone, I think, would earn the game a part on this list.

That stuff's so damn cool.

Moving on.

Best Art Direction, Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, Hades 2, and Hollow Knight Silksong.

I've said this a bazillion times.

This might be the best example of this category we've ever seen.

I think we mentioned that during the live thing but man Hades 2 obviously what an amazing art design and direction but like that is also just following up what they did like I don't think that Hades 2 is particularly like I mean it's better than Hades 1 I would say but like I don't think it necessarily like deserves it over it