The Great Journey

How an all-star musical lineup changed videogame soundtracks forever

- Mat Ombler

Most people associate Halo 2 with the birth of Xbox Live, but Halo 2 did more than simply change the world of online multiplayer; it changed the world of videogame music too. The Halo 2 soundtrack is one of the most ambitious and successful videogame soundtracks that has ever been released, spanning two volumes of music that have shipped over 100,000 copies worldwide.

The music in Halo 2 was written by some of its biggest fans – and we don’t just mean the series’ co-composers Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori. An A-list line-up of some of the world’s biggest bands, artists and producers, with a combined total of six Grammys and a billion albums sold between them, all wrote music for the game. The work of Nile Rodgers, Steve Vai, John Mayer, Incubus, Breaking Benjamin and Hoobastank was a giant love letter to the Halo series and their way of showing the world the impact Halo: Combat Evolved had on their own lives.

The first Halo had an incredible impact on a lot of people, of course, as well as on Microsoft itself. As a launch title for Xbox, Halo was the catalyst for Microsoft shipping millions of consoles and establishing itself, despite much scepticism, as a genuine competitor to console giants Sony and Nintendo. Realising how important the game was and how much it had connected with fans all over the world, Martin O’Donnell, then Bungie’s audio director, wanted nothing more than to release the soundtrack. Microsoft, somehow, said no.