Most people don't think of video game music as something they'd put on during a commute, a workout, or a quiet evening at home. That's a mistake. Some of the most emotionally powerful, technically sophisticated music composed in the last two decades has come from video games – and a lot of it works just as well divorced from a screen as it does inside one.
These aren't novelty picks or nostalgia trips. Every soundtrack on this list holds up as a standalone listening experience. Whether you're into orchestral epics, brooding ambient scores, electronic beats, or jazz-inflected compositions, there's something here that will earn a permanent spot in your regular rotation.
The Last of Us – Gustavo Santaolalla
NieR: Automata – Keiichi Okabe
Red Dead Redemption 2 – Woody Jackson & Various Artists
Hades – Darren Korb
Journey – Austin Wintory
Celeste – Lena Raine
Ori and the Blind Forest – Gareth Coker
Disco Elysium – British Sea Power
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Marcin Przybyłowicz & Various Artists
Final Fantasy X – Nobuo Uematsu & Masashi Hamauzu
Genre: Acoustic, sparse, cinematic folk
Best listened to: Late evenings, reflective moods, quiet drives
Gustavo Santaolalla is a two-time Academy Award-winning composer, and the music he created for The Last of Us sounds exactly like what that credential suggests – except warmer, more intimate, and more affecting than most film scores manage. Built primarily around a custom instrument called the "tiple," a small Andean guitar-like instrument, the score is stripped back to almost nothing. Single notes, light picking patterns, long silences. And somehow, that restraint conveys more grief and love than a full orchestra would.
The main theme alone is one of the most recognizable and quietly devastating pieces of music written for any medium in the past twenty years. The full soundtrack runs about 45 minutes and feels more like an album designed for emotional processing than a background score. It doesn't require the game for context – the music communicates everything it needs to on its own terms.
Why it works outside gaming: It's essentially an acoustic folk record with cinematic scope. Santaolalla's background in world music gives it a texture that feels unlike anything else in the game space.
Start with: "The Last of Us," "All Gone (No Escape)," "The Choice"
Genre: Orchestral, choral, electronic, operatic
Best listened to: Deep focus work, long study sessions, intense gym sets
NieR: Automata's soundtrack is one of the most ambitious pieces of music ever composed for a video game. Keiichi Okabe and the MONACA team built a score that shifts between sweeping choral arrangements, fragile piano solos, distorted electronic textures, and full orchestral movements – sometimes within the same track. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world caught between androids and machine lifeforms, and the music captures that contradiction between beauty and destruction at every turn.
"Weight of the World," the game's central theme, features a vocalist singing in multiple languages simultaneously – a musical metaphor for the fractured, multi-layered nature of the story. "Alien Manifestation" is a driving electronic piece with enough urgency to anchor a workout playlist. "City Ruins: Rays of Light" is so melancholic and beautiful it regularly appears on lists of the greatest pieces of game music ever written. The full soundtrack spans several hours across multiple volumes and rewards every minute of it.
Why it works outside gaming: The emotional range is extraordinary. It functions as ambient music, focus music, and emotional music depending on which tracks you choose.
Start with: "Weight of the World," "City Ruins: Rays of Light," "Alien Manifestation"
Genre: Americana, folk, country, cinematic orchestral
Best listened to: Road trips, outdoor runs, open-sky moments
Red Dead Redemption 2's score is one of the most carefully crafted pieces of environmental music ever made for a game. Woody Jackson composed a dynamic score that shifts in real time based on where you are in the world and what you're doing – but extracted from that context and listened to as a straight album, it holds up as an exceptional collection of Americana and cinematic folk.
The licensed songs are equally strong. Willie Nelson's "Cruel, Cruel World," D'Angelo's "Unshaken," and the haunting originals like "Deadman's Gun" (from the first game) create a sonic world that feels as lived-in and authentic as the landscape it was designed to accompany. There's dust in this music. There's weight. It sounds like grief wearing leather and saying very little about it.
Why it works outside gaming: The Americana aesthetic and the understated emotional delivery make it excellent background music for long drives, outdoor settings, or any moment that calls for quiet intensity.
Start with: "Unshaken" (D'Angelo), "Cruel, Cruel World" (Willie Nelson), "That's the Way It Is"
Genre: Prog-rock, metal, electronic, world music fusion
Best listened to: Workouts, high-energy focus sessions, commutes
Darren Korb has been quietly building one of the most distinctive compositional voices in gaming for over a decade, and Hades is his best work yet. The soundtrack blends Greek-influenced folk instrumentation with modern prog-rock energy and electronic texture in a way that sounds completely singular. He describes his approach as "mediterranean prog-rock" and that label is accurate but undersells how good it actually sounds in practice.
"In the Blood" is a full-throated rock track with real emotional stakes. "Hypnos Overture" is loungy and cool in a way that somehow fits seamlessly alongside battle-ready tracks like "Out of Tartarus." The voice actors from the game also contribute vocals to several tracks, which gives the album a theatrical quality that elevates it beyond a standard game score. The fact that Darren Korb himself sings on several tracks – and sounds genuinely great doing it – is a bonus most listeners don't expect.
Why it works outside gaming: It's genuinely a great rock/folk album that happens to be a game soundtrack. High energy, strong hooks, and enough variety to keep a long playlist interesting.
Start with: "In the Blood," "Out of Tartarus," "Good Riddance"
Genre: Orchestral, neo-classical, chamber music
Best listened to: Meditation, yoga, creative work, emotional reset
Journey's soundtrack made history in 2013 as the first video game score ever nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Score Soundtrack category. Austin Wintory composed a continuous arc of music designed to follow a traveler through a wordless pilgrimage across a vast desert toward a distant mountain. The result is a piece of music that functions almost like a tone poem – a single emotional journey told entirely through sound.
The cello is the spine of the score, representing the player character, and Wintory weaves it through orchestral textures that expand and contract with the emotional beats of the journey. From the quiet, exploratory opening tracks to the overwhelming orchestral swell of "Apotheosis" – arguably the single most emotionally powerful piece of music on this entire list – the album builds with the patience and architecture of a classical composition. It runs about 45 minutes and feels complete from first note to last.
Why it works outside gaming: It's structured like a classical music program – it has an arc, a climax, and a resolution. Incredible for focused listening or creative work that needs emotional depth without distraction.
Start with: "Nascence," "Apotheosis," "I Was Born for This"
Genre: Electronic, chiptune, ambient, indie
Best listened to: Focused work, study sessions, emotional processing
Celeste is a game about climbing a mountain while dealing with anxiety and self-doubt, and Lena Raine's score mirrors that emotional landscape with remarkable precision. The music is built on electronic foundations but layered with warmth and humanity that keeps it from ever feeling cold. Tracks shift seamlessly between energetic, rhythmic pieces that pulse with urgency and quiet, reflective passages that feel like breathing room after something difficult.
"Resurrections" is a track that builds from fragile piano into a full electronic piece that captures the feeling of pushing through something hard and coming out the other side. "Exhale" does exactly what the name suggests. The DLC chapter, Farewell, added some of Raine's finest work – particularly the extended track "Reach for the Summit," which mirrors the emotional arc of the whole game in a single nine-minute piece. Lena Raine has since gone on to compose for Minecraft and other major titles, but Celeste remains the clearest expression of what she does best.
Why it works outside gaming: Excellent study and focus music with enough emotional texture to feel meaningful rather than merely functional.
Start with: "Resurrections," "Reach for the Summit," "Exhale"
Genre: Orchestral, neoclassical, ambient
Best listened to: Study, background listening, unwinding after a long day
Gareth Coker composed one of the most purely beautiful orchestral scores in gaming history for Ori and the Blind Forest, and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps matches it. The music is built around lush string arrangements, delicate piano, light choral elements, and a warmth that feels almost physically comforting. It's the kind of music that makes a grey afternoon feel bearable.
The score draws on the game's themes of loss, nature, and resilience without ever becoming heavy-handed. "Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark" is one of those pieces that sounds like it was written for a major film score and somehow ended up in a game instead. The Will of the Wisps soundtrack expands the sonic palette with more dynamic range – louder peaks and quieter valleys – while maintaining the organic warmth that made the first score so memorable.
Why it works outside gaming: Deeply relaxing orchestral music that functions as excellent background sound for reading, studying, or anything that needs a calm, beautiful sonic environment.
Start with: "Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark," "Ori, Lost in the Storm," "Sein and the Sunstone"
Genre: Indie rock, post-rock, ambient, folk
Best listened to: Late-night drives, introspective moods, creative writing sessions
Disco Elysium made the unusual choice of commissioning British Sea Power – an acclaimed UK indie rock band – to score the game rather than a traditional games composer. The result is unlike any other game soundtrack on this list. It sounds like an indie record, because it largely is one, filtered through the specific weird melancholy of a game about a detective with memory loss trying to reconstruct himself in a city that's given up on its own ideals.
Tracks like "The Insulindian Phasmid" are quietly gorgeous pieces of instrumental indie that would feel at home on a playlist alongside acts like Explosions in the Sky or Low. "The Dockworkers' Strike" has a grinding, purposeful energy that captures the political weight of the game's world. The soundtrack is available as a separate release on streaming platforms and holds up as an indie record in its own right – not as "good for a game soundtrack," just good.
Why it works outside gaming: It's a real indie record made by a real band. If you already like post-rock or UK indie, this slots directly into your existing taste.
Start with: "The Insulindian Phasmid," "The Dockworkers' Strike," "Martinaise"
Genre: Slavic folk, orchestral, world music
Best listened to: Work sessions, background listening, atmospheric evenings
The Witcher 3's soundtrack does something no other score on this list quite does – it builds an entire cultural world through music. Marcin Przybyłowicz led a team that drew on Slavic, Celtic, and Eastern European folk traditions to create a sonic identity for a world of monsters, magic, and moral ambiguity. The result sounds ancient and specific in a way that few fantasy scores manage.
"Geralt of Rivia" is a sweeping orchestral theme with enough gravitas to anchor any epic. The Gwent card game music is deceptively catchy. The standalone band Percival contributed some of the most vivid folk tracks in the score – particularly the Skellige island music, which uses live instruments and vocal harmonies rooted in actual Slavic folk traditions. The full soundtrack is enormous but navigable, and the Blood and Wine expansion added some of its finest pieces.
Why it works outside gaming: The folk and world music roots give it a distinctly non-generic flavor. It sounds like a place rather than a placeholder.
Start with: "Geralt of Rivia," "Ladies of the Woods," "Silver for Monsters" (Percival)
Genre: Orchestral, ambient, J-pop influenced, cinematic
Best listened to: Nostalgic evenings, emotional moments, long travel
Final Fantasy has one of the longest and most celebrated musical traditions in gaming history, and Final Fantasy X represents one of its highest points. Nobuo Uematsu – the composer most associated with the series – shared duties with Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano, creating a score with more tonal variety than any single Final Fantasy soundtrack before it. The result ranges from the beloved piano theme "To Zanarkand" – one of the most recognizable pieces of game music ever written – to the celebratory energy of "Tidus' Theme" and the grand sweep of "Hymn of the Fayth."
"To Zanarkand" deserves special mention. It opens the game over the ruins of a flooded city, and its simple piano melody communicates longing and loss so clearly that players who haven't touched the game in twenty years can still recall exactly where they were when they first heard it. The full soundtrack runs nearly two hours across two discs and covers enough emotional territory to function as a listening album for a long evening.
Why it works outside gaming: A genuinely emotional and melodically rich score that stands as one of the great game music achievements regardless of which Final Fantasy title you grew up with.
Start with: "To Zanarkand," "Hymn of the Fayth," "Suteki Da Ne (Isn't It Wonderful?)"
The best way to approach these soundtracks as a listener rather than a player is to organize them by mood and function rather than by game. Mix Celeste with Journey for a focused-work playlist. Layer in NieR: Automata and Hades for higher-energy sessions. Save The Last of Us and Final Fantasy X for evenings when you want music that actually makes you feel something.
All of these soundtracks are available on major streaming platforms – Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music carry nearly all of them. Several composers also sell lossless downloads through Bandcamp if audio quality matters to you. A handful have been released as physical vinyl and CD editions for collectors, including Journey and NieR: Automata.
If these ten open the door, composers worth exploring further include Jesper Kyd (Assassin's Creed II), Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Christopher Tin (Civilization IV's "Baba Yetu"), and Mick Gordon's work on Doom (2016) for anyone whose taste runs heavier.
Where can I stream these soundtracks? Nearly all of them are on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. NieR: Automata, Hades, and Celeste are fully available on all major platforms. A few older titles like Final Fantasy X may have region or rights limitations on some services – YouTube is usually the reliable fallback.
Do I need to have played the games to enjoy the music? Not at all. Every soundtrack on this list was selected specifically because it works as a standalone listening experience. Some, like Journey and Disco Elysium, might even be better without the context of gameplay pulling your attention away from the music itself.
Which is best for studying or focus work? Celeste, Journey, and Ori and the Blind Forest are the strongest focus music options – melodic and engaging enough to feel present, but not so vocally or lyrically dense that they compete with reading or thinking. NieR: Automata's ambient tracks work well for deeper focus sessions.
Which is best for working out? Hades is the clear answer for high-energy exercise – it's essentially a prog-rock album with momentum built in. NieR: Automata's battle tracks ("Alien Manifestation," "Bipolar Nightmare") are strong alternatives. Pistol Whip's soundtrack, while not on this list, is worth noting for gym use.
Are any of these available on vinyl or physical formats? Yes. Journey, NieR: Automata, Hades, The Last of Us, and several Final Fantasy titles have had vinyl and CD releases. Check iam8bit and Materia Collective for physical game music releases – they specialize in exactly this.
Game music has earned its place in any serious listener's rotation. The composers on this list are working at the highest level of their craft, writing music that stands completely on its own terms outside the context of the games they were designed for. Whether you're approaching this out of curiosity or already know exactly which genre speaks to you, there's a soundtrack here that will genuinely surprise you with how good it is.
Put on "To Zanarkand" or "Apotheosis" or "In the Blood" the next time you need music that actually does something. You'll understand within the first thirty seconds why this list exists.
The Last of Us Original Soundtrack – Gustavo Santaolalla – https://open.spotify.com/album/3T2NCH3wbSMKOtRhHKFQgP
NieR: Automata OST – Keiichi Okabe / MONACA – https://open.spotify.com/album/7lxiMEqHdDZgBVbXNkNgEB
Journey Original Soundtrack – Austin Wintory – Grammy Nomination Reference – https://www.grammy.com/news/first-ever-video-game-score-nominated-grammy-award
Celeste Original Soundtrack – Lena Raine – https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.com/album/celeste-original-soundtrack
Hades Original Soundtrack – Darren Korb – https://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/hades-original-soundtrack
Disco Elysium – Original Soundtrack by British Sea Power – https://open.spotify.com/album/4f6Ic5gVPwqhUJVmmjzRnQ
Ori and the Blind Forest Soundtrack – Gareth Coker – https://open.spotify.com/album/4TuMpNMH2yBicFxiQAeUZu
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt OST – https://open.spotify.com/album/3xhGSGPRHGILVWkOEBb4pD
Final Fantasy X OST – Square Enix Music – https://open.spotify.com/album/0kkUNNTjGniByAzJ3TbSnH
Materia Collective – Physical Game Music Releases – https://www.materiacollective.com
