It Takes an RE Village to Hire a Hitman who Loves Game Soundtracks - Renegade Arcade #11

Capcom delivers a new look at Resident Evil Village, Microprose lives(!), a new Hitman is released, and Tyler is joined by Keona and new guest host Kristin as they chat about the most memorable game soundtracks of 2020 and beyond! It’s another visit to the Renegade Arcade! Join us, won’t you?

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Capcom delivers a new look at Resident Evil Village (that's where the tall vampire lady awaits!), Microprose lives (say what?) and is publishing a new RTS title called Highfleet, a new Hitman is released, and we have some juicy Assassin's Creed info to discuss!

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This past Thursday, Capcom hosted a brand new showcase for Extremely Tall Vampire Lady Simulator—I mean, Resident Evil Village, and it was the hotness, I must say. Graphically, the RE Engine has never looked better, with awe-inspiring atmospheric lighting, beautiful environments on display, and impressive character models. Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and her daughters look to be captivating enemies, and poor Ethan Winters also has to deal with a seemingly villainous (and possibly werewolf?) version of Chris Redfield! That’s a lot to take on, even for a Resident Evil protagonist!

The most important information to come out of that showcase, however, was the much sooner than expected May 7, 2021 release date for the game, which is now up for preorder and available on Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PS4 and Xbox One. News that the game would be coming to “last-gen” systems was met with some trepidation, as we all know what happened the last time a big-budget, graphically-intense, ambitious triple-A game was released for PS4 and Xbox One… Cyberpunk 2077 ring any bells? So, how will RE Village run on older hardware? I guess we’ll find out. Personally, I’m grabbing the PC version. And as for the multiplayer mode, RE: Verse? The less said, the better.

In other news, the biggest release this past week was Hitman 3, the latest in the long-running Hitman franchise of stealth/action titles, developed and published by IO Interactive, who are also working on an upcoming James Bond game. While I have yet to play the game, the trailers and gameplay previews I’ve seen have been very impressive, and it looks visually stunning, which isn’t something I’ve often said about previous entries in the series. I’m interested to see where IO takes Agent 47’s story in this one, so I’ll definitely try it out and have impressions ready for the next Arcade episode.

One more odd bit of news: Microprose lives! Those who remember their old flight-sims and UFO: Enemy Unknown games will be thrilled to hear this, I’m sure. Apparently the company went defunct in 2001, but was resurrected by various entities until it was shuttered again and bought out in 2019 by an investor named David Lagettie, who also had the support of one of the company’s founders, Bill Stealey. The company now has a new title in the works called Highfleet, a steampunk-inspired RTS (real-time strategy) game featuring player-controlled battleships with legs that battle each other for supremacy, which sounds pretty awesome! I’ll definitely be looking forward to that one.

With the news out of the way, let’s talk about our favorite game soundtracks of 2020! While I’ll let the episode speak for itself, there are a few tracks I’d like to share here. First up is Kristin’s pick, the main theme music from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is one of the bounciest and most feel-good tracks I’ve heard in a long while. Composed by Kazumi Totaka, who has worked on the series for a long portion of his career, actually performed the piece live during quarantine, which I’ve embedded above. It sounds awesome!

Second, let’s talk about Doom Eternal once again, and the incomparable work of Mick Gordon. While Gordon’s relationship with Bethesda has unfortunately fallen through since Eternal’s release, we’ll always be able to listen to his Eternal soundtrack in full. At least, until Youtube’s algorithm seeks out all the remixed versions and subjects them to copyright strikes. Anyway, here’s my favorite song on the entire soundtrack, “Meathook,” named after the single most badass weapon attachment of all time.

I also want to mention Hades for a second, because that game has an absolute killer soundtrack! I’m particularly fond of “Out of Tartarus” for its heavy metal flavor, but the song I’d like to highlight here is “In the Blood,” a duet between composer Darren Korb and vocalist Ashley Barrett, who are such a great tandem and have been involved with every single Supergiant release over the years. Excellent work by both of them.

Finally, here’s Tyler’s pick for one of his favorite gaming soundtracks of 2020, composer Jack Wall’s haunting Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War main theme. Featuring Russian chants backed by ‘80s-inspired synths, Cold War’s theme puts you in the mindset of the Reagan era, with a menacing undercurrent beneath the melody and an intensity that increases as you listen. Fitting for a game set in the period, and yet another strong showing from Wall, who has scored almost the entire Black Ops series (except for the first game) along with the first two Mass Effect games and has become one of my favorite video game composers of all time.

KrissyKatPink went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Dead by Daylight VOD now.

Well, luckily we didn’t go for three and a half hours for this episode! Sorry about that, everyone! Now that we’re a weekly show, we won’t have to do that. Oh, and don’t miss our segments on FFVII Remake and The Last of Us 2 in the episode! Be sure to visit Kristin’s Twitch channel and follow and subscribe to her! (We’ve also embedded a video from her channel above!) We’ll see you later for the next installment of the Renegade Arcade! Be safe and sound out there, fellow Renegades!