It’s the 15th of August. You wake up to the Prime Minister’s speech blasting through the TV’s speakers. Coming out of your room, you see your entire family hooked to the screen, transfixed at the majestic display of cultural diversity and military power at the country’s capital. Patriotism is flowing through everyone’s veins, flags are fluttering in the wind, and so your mind can’t help but think of all those games where you had fought for a country, a kingdom, a planet, and freedom as a whole. All those moments in the virtual world come back to you rewiring your brain with immense pride and you feel like recalling every single moment. So here’s a quick list of our ‘Top 7 Patriotic music from videogames’ to refresh that memory lane of yours. Better if you read the descriptions with the soundtracks playing in the background (*wink *wink).
[Spoilers ahead]
#1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – End Credits theme
Composer: Brian Tyler
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 ends with a pyrrhic victory. Though the Americans assisted by the French emerge victorious but at the cost of what? Soap MacTavish dies. Yuri dies. Truck, Grinch, Sandman, Ghost, Gaz – everyone who was part of Task Force 101 (disavowed in the game) dies in the course of the events that instigated World War III. And not to mention the countless civilian casualties in New York, Berlin, London, and Paris. Though the war ends, the lives lost cannot be forgotten. All those sacrifices, all those acts of valor shall not perish down the history because history is written by the victors, and composer Brian Tyler, whose works include Need For Speed: The Run and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, will remind you just that. The chords, the cymbals will flush your veins with pure patriotism instantly lifting your spirits but at the same time, fill you with a certain melancholy for the heroes who laid down their lives selflessly.
#2 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – Big Boss Returns
Composer: Jonas B. Ingebretsen
#3 Halo: Combat Evolved – Main theme
Composer: Michael Salvatori
Ah, the good old days of shooting Covenants! Halo is one of those games that will capture your imagination in the first few seconds, literally, because this soundtrack plays on the menu screen itself. The monk’s chant will evoke the grandeur of the gargantuan ring floating in space as your spaceship emerges out of a wormhole with a Covenant ship hot on your trail. Because once the monk’s chant ends and the guitar riff begins, a part of you will automatically pick a Spartan rifle and a shotgun to blast off those alien bastards into outer space while your trusty AI orders you to assist your Spartan brothers-in-arms. With a couple of grenades and health packs in hand, you sprint for the last escape pod, and right there before you lies the illuminated horizon of the megalithic Halo. Such is the magnificence of Michael Salvatori that you won’t mind the dated graphics of the game. which was pretty top-notch for that time.
#4 Dragon Age Inquisition – Main theme
Composer: Trevor Morris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utZZpP73eZg
Dragon Age Inquisition is one of those game whose main theme will captivate your senses preventing you from pressing the New Game button as soon as the menu screen appears. Composed by Trevor Morris this piece of art starts with a slow yet mysterious chord that gradually rises into a crescendo as the Mages and Templars march into the battlefield to face each other only to realize that there’s a far greater threat looming from beyond the thin veil of reality that separates their world and The Fade. But the chords don’t stop there, they further transcend into a climax showing you the importance of the role you’re going to play as The Inquisitor whose job is to bring balance to the world by preventing The Blight of Demons from occurring again, close the rifts tearing the veil between our world and The Fade. You are the chosen one and the entire Inquisition is with you, standing shoulder-to-shoulder by your side, entrusting you with their faith. In this game, you are special!
#5 Assassin’s Creed III – Main theme
Composer: Lorne Balfe
What’s better to listen on Independence Day than the main theme of a game based on the American Revolution! You fight for the freedom of the Colonies, walking alongside the likes of George Washington, Paul Reverie and Benjamin Franklin. Heck, you even get to witness iconic events ripped straight from the history books like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, and Lorne Balfe, who already has a huge portfolio of composition for both movies and games leaves no stone unturned to flush your soul with that massive dose of much-needed patriotism. You are a lone man, but that won’t deter you from going head-to-head against the Colonial Templars who have made the colonies rife with corruption. You stand atop the summit of buildings surveying the cityscape before you, marking your targets to assassinate before leaping into the air filling your heart with faith. This is your virtue for you dear, are an assassin.
#6 Crysis 2 – Epilogue theme
Composer: Hans Zimmer
If the name Hans Zimmer doesn’t ring any bells then you’re probably living under a rock. After composing the OST of The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and whatnot, Hans Zimmer is back in Crysis 2, where you’re given a superpowered Nanosuit to take down the aliens called Ceph on whose tech your very suit is based on. But the Battle for New York City is far from over because once you’ve destroyed their spaceship, you see a vision of the suit’s original owner, Prophet, and that’s where the soundtrack kicks in, the chords and the metallic violins ascending to such magnitudes that you’ll feel goosebumps crawling over your skin as The Prophet shows you the full scale of the alien threat. And as the score reaches a climax, your suit realizes a full-scale area-denial bioweapon that instantly vaporizes all the aliens ravaging within the city’s perimeters. The war has gone global by now and you’re the new Prophet as you emerge unscathed from the spaceship’s rubble. With a bigger mission at hand and a newfound spirit in heart, you don’t look back for the crisis has just escalated!
#7 Freedom Fighters – The Battle for Freedom
Composer: Jesper Kyd
Another gem of an OST by Jesper Kyd after his work in the Hitman games, which you can blare through your speakers as you gather forces to stop the Red invasion of New York City in this alternate history where the Soviet Union isn’t disintegrated. When the chorus begins you’ll realize that you need to build up a resistance to stop the enemy occupation, and as the music slows down you’ll feel the need to recruit fellow freedom fighters and plan tactics. And then, the action begins! It’s your resistance versus the Soviet tanks and choppers, it’s your iron will versus their communist propaganda, it’s your undeterred determination versus the Red’s unreasonable force. An iconic blend of orchestra, opera, and electronic beats, this will boil the sense of patriotism in your nerves every second of it.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY GAMERS!