The Masterminds Behind One Of Gaming's Best Soundtracks: Halo

Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori

On June 11, 2001 Microsoft and Bungie released Halo; Combat Evolved of the Xbox gaming system and this release would be a change to First-Person Shooters (FPS) genre on home consoles. Halo successful was followed by many sequel games, comic books, novels, and animations. Halo's story is that you play as a space marine named Master Chief and your goal is to stop an alien religious covenant from destroying all life in the galaxy. The first Halo was a groundbreaking game for me personally because this is only one of a few games that can still remember the first time that I actually played it. Beyond the shooting Halo on other aspect caught my attention and that was the music.

The music in Halo: Combat Evolved was composed and produced by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori and they would later go on to compose Halo's next 4 games. When they started working on Halo, they wanted to make a space epic that would resonate, but at the time they didn't know the main theme they made for the game would have such an impact on the gaming community. They used a wide variety of instruments on the soundtrack. 

The main theme as I mention before is one of the first thing people think when they think about Halo. The reason this song does that is because of one music technique they used, Georgian chant. The Halo Theme is a mysterious and haunting start to a new experience that people will remember the first time they played this game. The Georgian chants after this would be a staple in the Halo soundtracks even to today where the soundtrack are no longer made by O'Donnell or Salvatori. 

Bungie in 2012 gave the Halo franchise to 343 Industries, which was created from old members of Bungie and new people in general. After the passing of the franchise O'Donnell and Salvatori decided to stay with Bungie instead of following Halo to 343 because they wanted to work on something different. Bungie would later put out Destiny and the soundtrack by O'Donnell and Salvatori would follow. After the release of Destiny O'Donnell had a falling out with Bungie and their supporters Activision and left Bungie. 

Today Martin is on the free market and I really can't wait to see what game he composes next, but his work with the Halo franchise will always have a special place in my heart.