by Ryan Keaveney

Having not satisfied himself by dominating blockbuster film scoring for the past 10 years, Hans Zimmer has now begun gobbling up videogame assignments. Well, not really gobbling, more like sampling, with his initial foray into the medium being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. USA Today’s Game Hunters caught up with Hans and picked his brain about the why, and what behind this new career move.

Is this your first video game score? How did you get connected with Infinity Ward and Activision?

This is the first time I even stuck my toe into these waters. Partly because my friend Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear Solid 4, The Taking of Pelham 123) had done the previous one and he had a lot of fun on it and partly meeting the guys and partly it’s a really interesting place to go at the moment. I think the convergence of different forms of communication or different forms of entertainment are really interesting. Plus I think the technology has gotten good enough that things can move a little better. You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen. So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I start to get excited about the thing.

Talk about how the creative process works for you in this game, compared to a film. Do you see finished footage?

You see a lot of unfinished footage. But it still tells you exactly what is going on. It’s actually not that different from working on an animated movie other than there are certain things you just can’t do. You don’t know how long it’s going to take the player to get to the end of the them, so things which we musicians take for granted, we work out all these big dynamic arcs, that is suddenly gone. So we have to think in a slightly different way. At the end of the day, what I think is really good about this game is the storytelling is really interesting. Rather than working from a main character who is an actor, in a funny way the main character is the participant in the game. So you have to think slightly differently in how you approach the thing.

Full interview: USA Today – Game Hunters