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The two artists were in Italy to share more about their visions after working on masterpieces such as The Last of Us and Journey, and here we caught up with them to discuss the use of AI by actors, inspiration, balancing expressiveness vs interactivity, and their recent and future projects.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, we're at the 26th Comicon in Napoli, and I'm here joined by two acquaintances of mine, Austin and Troy, we met in the past, beautiful, you know, music, video game music event, in Úbeda, a concert event that was really nice, and Troy, I met you remotely for Dirt 5, so it's really, really nice to meet you again, and I didn't even know you were friends, you were doing these beautiful concerts together, singing, speaking, and composing, so that's super nice."
"Let's talk games first, Troy, we love you as Indy, and as many other characters, of course.
He means as an independent (dev).
But, you know, Indy is recent, and we had Harrison Ford praising your work there, and you were very excited to share when you first said, I'm Indiana Jones."
"So, how do you feel looking back at that, and would you like to say, I'm Indiana Jones again soon?
Oh man, of course, who doesn't, right?
I'm going to leave that to the betters of Bethesda and Lucas and MachineGames.
Look, if Indiana Jones has taught us anything, it's that there's so many stories in that world to tell."
"If I get another, you know, swing at the bat to be able to tell a story, I would happily accept.
But I'm also, if that's the only one that we do, I can hang my hat with pride.
We did a great job, we made a great game.
I'm proud of every scene, and I'm excited and overjoyed with the response that we have."
"People love that game, and that's what we really set out to do.
And another thing Mr. Ford said is that you don't need AI to steal his soul, because you did a great job.
Is the elephant in the room, I have to ask you about this, both of you.
Other than generative AI, how do you feel about, or what's your opinion on voice actors that actually approve of training a model and getting some royalties out of it as part of their career and their jobs?
Or do you think it always has to be human soul?
I don't think you could ever discount the ingenuity and resiliency of an artist trying to find a way to make money at what they do."
"There's a quote by David Mamet where he said, "the exigencies of the artist’s situation are always financial" It's always trying to find a way to subsidize our addiction of doing what we do.
And if we have to sell our soul, or as Harrison Ford put it, or find very unique ways to make money so we can continue to do this, sure, I think that shows the agency and the authority that an artist has over their work."
"But I can also see how someone can just easily, quickly bastardize that.
If you look at what I do, I've stolen from everybody that I've ever respected.
In some ways, there's a fingerprint of what they've done on me.
You're going to see a little bit of..."
"I mean, you'll find a little bit of Nolan North in me.
So I think that...
It's like, does the Beatles need the Stones? The Stones need the Beatles.
Everybody traces themselves back to the same lineage."
"We're all thieves.
And I think that if we regard ourselves as anything but, we're fooling ourselves.
What's your take? You stole from Jerry Goldsmith?
I can't wait that IGN is going to have so much fun with that one."
"A little bit of Nolan in Troy.
That's our headline.
Did you steal from Jerry Goldsmith and others?
Oh yeah, of course.
No, I think..."
"I think, and well clocked on the Goldsmith.
I look at it as, there are artists that are always going to be interested in trying whatever the latest technology is.
And if an actor says, ooh, did you know that I can license my voice to an AI?
And then there can be a thousand of me."
"And that's one entrepreneurial reaction.
In the same way that there are painters who say, Photoshop is not real art.
I use oil, like the masters of a thousand years ago.
And that's their choice."
"And then there's others that their whole knowledge of art is in an iPad.
And I go, I don't see why it's different if there's artists that go, my tool is ChatGPT.
They've never even held a paintbrush.
I go, the people that are not coming in with all of these existential angst and crises, they're the ones who are going to just see it as a blank slate and probably create things that none of us can imagine."
"That only that tool can create.
Right now, we're looking at it so relative to art we're familiar with and art that we're comfortable with.
And that we know how to make a living from and whatnot.
That everything represents this anxiety."
"But I go, I don't know.
I refuse to be pessimistic about it.
Now, I don't know the implications.
I don't want to be naive either."
"But I also look at it and I go, hey, if it comes and it takes my job, the universe doesn't owe me my job.
I hope I can do this until my dying days like Jerry Goldsmith.
But I can't guarantee that and I certainly can't force reality to promise me that.
And so I'm not going to try."
"And 14 years ago, we were talking about expressiveness versus interactivity.
That was like the most difficult thing to balance now that you were working with games and we talked Journey and Flow.
We didn't talk The Banner Saga."
"It didn't exist.
I was going to say, yeah.
14 years ago in Spain.
And that was a beautiful event.
Thank you."
"We're celebrating our anniversary.
So what can you tell me about that balance now?
How do you feel about that?
It's still the same challenge."
"It's still the same challenge.
Fundamentally, this idea that my goal as a composer in games is always to make the player feel as in charge of the moment as possible.
So that they're almost convinced that they're writing the music themselves.
It's so woven in with what they're doing."
"And yet, not at the expense of it feeling like real music.
That is the challenge.
Because I go, you know, if you listen to Tina Guo play cello.
Yeah."
"She's fantastic.
We know her as well.
She's the best.
So you go, you give her 90 seconds of musical runway to do a beginning, middle, end of a phrase, of an expression."
"To build up, you know, setup and payoff.
The linearity of that setup and payoff is what makes payoff without setup is not payoff.
Right?
So you need that linearity of this, therefore this."
"Well, if the player's in charge and it's this and then maybe this or maybe that.
Very quickly, it's not this, therefore this.
It's just this and then another thing.
Okay."
"And that's where you lose the emotional expression.
And so my whole career is how do we not lose that?
How do you make it where everything feels inevitable even if there was hypothetically infinite things that could happen?
Like more emergent in a way."
"Yeah.
And I don't know.
I could be still doing this at 90 and feel like I haven't solved this problem.
But I think it is the thing that is exciting about doing game music as opposed to literally every other form of music."
"All right, Troy.
And you get more and more involved in other areas of game development.
You get involved in the script writing.
You get involved in discussions."
"And you told me this back with Dirt 5 that you've been doing that more and more.
And recently we read that you might be interested in, you know, trying your hand at game development.
So, yeah.
Just as Austin said, how would you approach that?
Is it a difficult problem to solve?
You said shipping games is a miracle, right?
Any game that ships is a miracle."
"By the laws of fate, it is doomed to fail.
And if you don't do that, then you somehow escape the orbit of at least mediocrity.
Then you're crazy.
Then you're crazy to do this."
"It's insane what we do.
I don't think it's a problem to solve, though.
I think it's in the sense of trying to get the waves to calm down.
You're swimming in the ocean."
"But I've just continued to swim further and further away from shore.
So, I've been doing that from day one.
So, I'm going to continue to see how far out I can get.
Fortunately, I've learned from literally the best in the industry."
"And I think that it's easy in this industry to stay very siloed between your studio.
And if I can in any way pass on the lineage of some really great lessons onto a new studio, that go, this is the way that Naughty Dog did this.
This is the way that machine games did this."
"To be able to create an amalgamation of those, I think, is a wonderful challenge.
So, yeah, I'm here to tell as many stories as I can.
Like we'll both drop dead doing it.
Looking forward to that."
"Final one for each.
About current projects.
You gave me a little bit of a tease of what you're doing now.
So, what are you working on now?
Other than these beautiful concerts that you guys do together."
"In terms of games that you can disclose.
Well, yeah.
Nothing.
Yeah, exactly.
I wish I could say."
"I'm grateful.
I've always tried to balance working on projects that are, you know, small, intimate collaborations with indie teams and bigger projects.
And I have both on my plate right now."
"Several of both.
And I just had a string of games come out.
And so, now I'm in that little window where I now can't talk about anything for probably the rest of the year.
Okay."
"But, yeah.
Happily, there are things that are coming.
That when we can talk at Naples 2047.
In 14 years.
In 14 years."
"Yeah.
So, 14 years back in Úbeda.
Celebrating our 28th anniversary.
2040.
Yeah."
"Yeah.
So, yeah.
You know the drill.
It's always the same.
But, happily, yeah."
"There are some things.
Looking forward to those.
And Judas, Intergalactic.
I know you can't share details about the games proper."
"But, perhaps, how you feel about them.
What are your expectations?
How involved are you in those projects we're looking forward to playing ASAP?
I mean, neither Ken Levine nor Neil Druckmann need my help making those games."
"I will say that this applies to both of them.
It is the most ambitious thing that either of them have ever done.
I asked Ken Levine one time.
I was like, is this your magnum opus?
He goes, it better be."
"Every game that I work on should be my magnum opus.
This may be the last thing that I do.
Both he and Neil and everyone at their studios, respectively, are throwing their full weight behind both of those projects.
They'll be out in their due time."
"Mouse PI for Hire just dropped.
I just finished my credits on that game.
And because Indiana Jones The Great Circle drops on Switch 2 on May 12th, I get to start my third playthrough of that game.
So, I'm excited to do that."
"That was a great plug, wasn't it?
I was about to mention it because I'm about to play it and I'm looking forward to that one as well.
We had MachineGames' lead of sound.
We were talking with him in Madrid the other day and we talked about how to portray your voice in the appropriate channels."
"So, that was very interesting.
Anyway, thank you so much for your time.
I'm looking forward to watching your concerts live.
I didn't know about this."
"So, enjoy the rest of the show in Napoli.
Thank you guys so much.
Thank you.
Cheers.
And you as well."
