How The Stray Gods Team Wrote A Musical With Millions Of Variations

Stray Gods was born from a reject pitch for composer Austin Wintory.

Wintory was asked to attend a pre GDC meeting five years ago to present game ideas to a friend who would not be named. He had one in mind that he thought was really exciting. It was a musical game – not just a game with musical numbers distributed throughout, but where the player has control over the music itself. Wintory’s best friend wasn’t very enthusiastic.

Wintory recalls, “He told me very graciously but without ambiguity, that he hated the idea. I wanted no part of it. The story is told with a smile, and he finds humor in how this pitch was eventually turned into the game that I am currently interviewing Wintory about.

Although his friend, who wished to remain anonymous, was not interested, Wintory was directed towards Liam Esler. Esler has similar aspirations for creating choice-based narratives games. Wintory had “literally sprint” to Esler’s office before the flight to Australia. The two began talking about how much they love musicals. Buffy The Vampire SlayerThe partnership was formed between Wintory’s Summerfall Studios and Esler.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical was the final game that would be created. Grace (portrayed by Laura Bailey, a veteran of video games), is a young woman who has to prove that she’s innocent in a case of murder. Her newly acquired powers as a muse force people in her vicinity to sing. This world has a contemporary take on Greek Mythology. Many classic gods are present, like Apollo, Persephone or Athena. The game is an interesting twist on role-playing games. Players can choose lyrics for musical numbers as well as dialogue choices during conversation. This changes both the storyline and music.

Grace takes a decision in mid-song.

It’s difficult to manage a story with multiple branches, and adding a music element requires an incredible amount of coordination. Wintory, and every Stray Gods staff member I’ve spoken to so far, can’t stop mentioning the scope of the game. This is a huge undertaking, particularly for an independent studio’s first game. I am curious to know the answer.

How did they come up with the idea of writing a musical that has millions of variations in it?

Music Beyond Measure

Wintory was appointed Stray Gods music director and composer. He worked closely with the team that composed the song and scored the game. But while Wintory has written music for huge games, such as Journey and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, there’s never been a game with a scale quite like Stray Gods.

Wintory says, “A song which only has three options can end up having thousands of different permutations.” The final game had literally hundreds of thousands of variations.

The numbers are so big because they’re not just a simple matter of choosing between red, green, and blue. As you can see, the choices that you made earlier (often in the story) will often change your current situation. The difference between being kind to the character two times in a line and then becoming mean is that you are not repeating your kindness. In many cases, each of these sections has its own set of lyrics, as well as a largely different backing track.

You can also look at numbers in a different way: Grace decides how to move forward. The song allows Grace to choose whether she wants to side with her friend Freddie or the mischievous Pan idol. The song has only three verses and three choruses. There are also two pre-choruses and a middle section. But the 38 different sections that need to be recorded and written result from the choices made. This is at least four-times the effort if you ignore the additional planning necessary to coordinate the different paths. And this is just for an early song – as the story proceeds, the number of variables in each encounter only increases.

Wintory intends to release the music as four separate albums in order to cover as many aspects of this storyline as possible. The four albums will each roughly sum up a particular playstyle, but “at worst, [give]He says that the game has six hours of music. This is a lot more than any other soundtrack I’ve seen. Wintory told me that there are six hours worth of music, which dwarfs any other soundtrack I could find. However, it is unclear whether every single minute will be included on the soundtracks.

Wintory emphasizes the need for each musician to be well-versed in video games, including dialogue trees. Tripod was a natural choice due to the previous work they had done with Wintory on This Gaming Life, Syndicate, and other projects. Tripod initially was only to provide lyrics but soon began contributing musically as well.

This led to the search for another writer. Montaigne was at the top of the list, but Montaigne took the initiative before Summerfall reached out to see if they were interested in writing the music for the video game. tweeting, “seriously though. “Let me write the music for your computer game.” The music team went from four members to five in a flash.

The Pantheon Of Performers

Wintory, Troy Baker, (The Last of Us), David Gaider, and the creative director all joined in on a recording with performers when songs were finished. Wintory says that the writing process for songs is as unconventional as the music itself. Even when lyrics are finished, performers sing to “the bare-bones of backing tracks”, such as basic piano chords, or iPhone recordings of guitars.

Grace (Laura Bailey), Apollo’s (Troy Baker), advice to Grace.

Baker, who was present during my interview Wintory, said that this simplicity was deliberate. He does not only speak as Stray Gods voice director, but also as Apollo, the love interest. Austin told him, “It’s very important that we all have the feeling that this is your song. That will show in its arrangement and orchestration.” The song should come to you and not you the song. Wintory confirms this and adds that the way a singer sings can change the genre of a song.

It is an incredible amount of faith in the cast. They are all stars. Baker says, “They did not audition.” This group was selected specifically for the purpose of making recording as quick and efficient as possible. Baker explains, “We did not have the margin for error of many triple-A or large independent titles.” We had to do this correctly. “We had budgeted it down to the minute of each actor’s session.”

Rahul Kohli or Erika ishii are two actors who didn’t want to sing. Baker says it’s a hard sell, saying that some people are eager to join a musical production while others may not have considered themselves singers at all. Wintory and Baker say that’s exactly why they want the singers in. Baker adds, “It gives our world more grounding.” Grace’s newfound talents are what she uses to do this. This is not because we brought all of these people together; Grace brings this out in others.

On stage, Austin Wintory, Anjali Bihimani (at the keyboard), Troy Baker, Felicia Days, and Rahul Kohli are seated from left to right.

Asking the writers if there are any obvious influences in their writing, I get a mixed response. Yon claims that Sondheim is a constant influence, while Baker remembers seeing Hadestown Montaigne, who was worried Stray Gods might feel like a cheap imitation (a call to Esler quickly changed his mind), takes this opportunity to praise a childhood favourite: 1994’s Swan Princess. The musical episode “Once More, With Feeling” from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer’s sixth season is the influence that everyone mentions.

Wintory says that the Buffy musical “narrativizes” that characters are in a play and that they know it. The song styles and qualities are based on the situation the characters face. Stray Gods is known for its variety, which plays an important role in each episode. Music also influences the plot and has a strong impact on the Stray Gods team. This is not only true between songs but also within them, as the music genres can change based on what the player chooses. 

Even experienced singers could find it difficult to record due to the changing genres and player choices. Everyone had to adjust their actions according to the dialogue and songs. Baker explains that the first session was a song about Grace confronting Medusa, played by Anjali Bihimani. It was also the time when they figured out how the recording process worked. Wintory’s and Baker’s answers to my question about why this song was the first are different. Wintory says it was the song that had the most completion at the time and that the branching out of the sequence is relatively easy because the songs are pretty contained. Baker, on the other hand, said that it was just a matter of starting somewhere.

“Nothing happened on purpose,” He laughs.

I remember this quote for several weeks following the interview. When I began to research the songwriting, I found it to be an incredibly large process. I also heard stories about people scrambling for ideas and trying to improvise. Stray Gods, a video game, was created from an unfinished pitch during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Singers recorded vocals on top of tracks, which had not been completed, and were arranged later.

“Nothing was on purpose” is clearly a joke – it’s evident that a lot of effort was put into every part of this game, and there’s no implication that the project was completed by accident. It’s a good example of how frantic and meandering the creative process is, even with some of gaming’s most renowned professionals. Stray Gods has been completed for years, and the release date of its game is fast approaching. The game’s reception and the risk involved will remain to be seen, but my question was answered.

How could they have known how to create a musical that had millions of variations in it? Answer: At first, no. It’s the fact that they did write it.

Adrift, Adrift! The first song from Stray Gods is revealed in our exclusive video.