Wintory's Coming

The Grammy-nominated composer on becoming the busiest musician in games

Five years later, the emails, Facebook messages and Instagram posts are still arriving on a daily basis; Austin Wintory happily acknowledges that his work on Thatgamecompany’s Journey was a career turning point. “I feel extraordinarily grateful,” he tells us. “I’ve had composer friends and colleagues who’ve had very successful careers but have never had an experience like that, where something became so personal to people that it’s something they’re excited about years later, that they’ve built into the fabric of their lives.”

Wintory was 24 when he signed up to score Journey, and 27 when it came out. After the fact, it dawned on him that he’d spent more than ten per cent of his life so far working on the game, and he suggests he got “freakishly lucky” with the way circumstances led his own musical journey to closely mirror the game’s own narrative. “You are probably going to change as a person considerably in that span,” he says. “Hopefully, you’re a deeper thinker or a more mature person; hopefully there’s positive growth. I certainly aspire to that.”