John Carpenter, the horror film legend best known for Halloween and The Thing, needs to bring his talents as a composer to video games. The filmmaker started his career in 1974 with Dark Star, which he directed and scored like many of his most popular works. In more recent years, his directorial work has slowed as his musical career has blossomed, with Carpenter composing for the most recent entries in the Halloween franchise. But in this latter portion of the filmmaker's career, he has also become an avid lover of video games; Carpenter even publicly praised Horizon Forbidden West. With him now scoring the works of other directors, the present is a better time than ever for Carpenter to bring his music to the world of video games.
This transition from film to video games makes sense for Carpenter for reasons other than his love for the art form. Carpenter's The Thing - what is considered as one of the best horror films of all time - was loathed by critics and movie goers alike when it first came out in 1982. However, the 90s saw its reception begin to shift toward the positive, and its DVD release in 1998 and warmly received 2002 video game adaptation/sequel cemented its legacy as one of the most important horror movies of all time. On top of this, there is the famous comparison between Snake Plissken of Carpenter's Escape From New York series and Solid Snake from Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series (who even calls himself Iroquois Plisken in Metal Gear Solid 2). Considering that Carpenter's films have had a relationship with games for last 35 years (the first Metal Gear came out in 1987), it would only be natural for him to focus some of his creative energy on the medium.
Luckily for fans of Carpenter, he recently shared in an interview with AV Club that he would be interested in scoring video games. When asked if he had ever considered working on a video game soundtrack, Carpenter said, "If someone asked me, I sure would. But no one's asked!" further stating, "I would love it. It would be fun, huh? Fun for me." The only thing standing in the way between a Carpenter-scored video game and fans, then, is someone hiring him for the job. Of course, he may not be perfect for every series; Carpenter gave up on Red Dead Redemption, after all. But considering the large array of film genres Carpenter has applied his synth-heavy musical style to, Carpenter would be the perfect composer for a large variety of titles coming in the future.
What Games John Carpenter's Music Would Be Perfect For
Though the Dead Space remake's release date in early 2023 would make it impossible for Carpenter to contribute to it, the film composer's style is perfect for the job. The game itself takes inspiration from plot elements of Dark Star (which is about a working-class crew of spacemen who blow up planets) as well as horror elements from The Thing. The famous director himself loves the game, and Carpenter has even considered making a Dead Space movie. Perhaps if the Dead Space remake repopularizes AAA horror games enough, it may lead to newer installments in the future that could involve Carpenter as a composer.
The Assassin's Creed series would also be a strong (if not strange) opportunity for Carpenter to begin composing scores for games. Though the usually history-heavy series may not meld well with his synth-heavy style, Carpenter loves the series, and it would be interesting to see what he could do with an Assassin's Creed game. Carpenter specifically said that he loved earlier series entries like the original Assassin's Creed for its gameplay in the AV Club interview, so AC Mirage's return to social stealth in 2023 could be an out-there starting point for the composer.
Finally, the best - and perhaps most realistic - opportunity for Carpenter to begin scoring video games would be Bethesda's planned 2023 release, Starfield, and later, Fallout 5. In the aforementioned AV Club interview, Carpenter shared he loves Fallout 76, even saying he's played a "sick" amount of hours of it. With his experience in the sci-fi and apocalyptic genres, John Carpenter has shown he has the precise sensibilities as an artist necessary for Starfield and Fallout 5. And considering Fallout 5 is a long ways out, Todd Howard has plenty of time to ask the Halloween creator to join the project.
Sources: AV Club