Sine the release of the first Homeworld, the music has been an element that shapes and melds the universe as much as the Kiiths, missions, and ships do. This was possible through the vicennial-long collaborative efforts of composer Paul Ruskay, and the many musicians who created the songs and sounds of the Homeworld series. While the soundtrack is still in production, we want to give our backers and fans the world premiere of two completely brand new tracks from Homeworld 3, with an interview from composer Paul Ruskay.
Where sci-fi is meant to take you to a whole other place, Ruskay says his goal with the music is to craft something “outside the continuum of culture” to help you feel like you really are in a wholly different universe. Listening to the new tracks below, you can hear how the different sounds and rhythms create a sound that feels like it doesn’t quite belong in space, but to the Homeworld universe itself. Returning as the composer for the fifth installment in the series, Ruskay references Brian Wilson as an inspiration for his approach. Comparing his innovation to the way Wilson built the California-esque soundscape of the 1960s.
Before Paul Ruskay brings us a behind-the-scenes look at his music, make sure to read all the way to the end for a first look at the tabletop RPG, Homeworld: Revelations.

Q. Can you tell us a little about the musicians you collaborated with to create the evolving sound of Homeworld 3?
PR: I was fortunate to collaborate with some phenomenal musicians from around the world that brought such musical depth to the soundtrack:
Ffion Elisa is a bilingual vocalist and recording artist based in North Wales, UK. An accomplished composer in her own right, Ffion's stunning and dynamic voice can be heard on cinematic film scores, video game soundtracks and popular vocal sample packs.

Onur Seçki is an Istanbul, Turkey based Percussionist, Audio Engineer and Electronic Music Producer known for unique live percussion performances on darbuka, bendir, frame drums, riq, cymbals, djembe & cajon.
Sean Pádraig is a life-long musician, composer, and performer now living in Austin, Texas known for performances on the Duduk.

Andrea Piccioni, a native of Rome, is a master performer on frame drums and has toured worldwide with artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Paul McCandless, and Wu Man.
Hesham Hamra is an Oud player based in Mannheim, Germany and grew up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Konstantinos Kalatzis is from Greece and is a professional musician with more than 20 years of experience (studio recordings and live performances) on the darbuka, bendir, congas, bongos, timbales, cymbals, singing bowls, udu, and more.

Q. It’s been 22 years since Homeworld, 21 years since Homeworld: Cataclysm, 18 years since Homeworld 2, 6 years since Homeworld: Remastered and 5 years since Deserts of Kharak were released. How have you re-immersed yourself in the Homeworld universe?
PR: For all five previous Homeworld releases, I have been producing audio (music + sound design) and been audio director to a game series that has a history that spans almost a quarter of a century. So, it’s safe to say that I’ve been immersed in the Homeworld Universe for a substantial period of time.
On the creative side, it doesn’t feel like there was much need to re-immerse in the IP, as historically, I have always been given the creative freedom to explore the musical “aesthetic” that I created in Homeworld’s original 1999 release. It was just a matter of picking up the thread of those previous games and carrying on as usual. Also, the original 1999 Homeworld was created at Studio X Labs, and I am still working from the same room in that studio for Homeworld 3 in 2021. So, in a way, it is a huge Groundhog Day for me, same music, same game, same studio some 23 years later.
That aesthetic has always embraced a combination of world music influences; vocal arrangements and electroacoustic ambient soundscapes create a musical background that communicates the culture and history of the races and factions that populate the game’s narrative. Also, the music serves as a backdrop to compliment the variety of game modes that the player will experience, from calm ambience of resourcing and fleet building to intense and epic combat. The formula of those musical influences has been spun in several different directions and has proved to be versatile to cover a range of moods that each title embraced. I have followed this aesthetic approach for Homeworld 3.

Q. How has the music in Homeworld 3 evolved with the franchise?
PR:In a way, the music forHomeworldhas always been created to serve the narrative of the current title in development. So as the story of Homeworld evolved, so did the music.
I think the best example of this was in Deserts of Kharak where I worked with instrumentalists based in Delhi, India. Since this chapter in theHomeworldsaga was based on Kharak, I went for a far more tribal sound that reflected the Kiith that inhabited the desert planet. By bringing in these Delhi based instrumentalists, the soundtrack evolved towards almost completely live performances with the more celestial and synth elements taking a backseat. Another example would beHomeworld: Cataclysmwhere the music took on a darker and sombre tone that reflected the survival-horror themes of that game’s narrative.
So, the music forHomeworld 3is following that basic pattern of matching the tone and style of the music to the overall narrative of the game. Since it’s dealing with deep historic narrative themes that embrace galaxy sized scale, I have pursued a musical direction that feels ancient but also heavily influenced by the firstHomeworld’s celestial synth elements.

Q. Can you speak a bit about the instrumentation used in the music for Homeworld 3?
PR: The music of Homeworld 3 includes a mix of instruments and sounds, with inspirations ranging from Wales to the Middle East.
With more than 4,000 years of history, Welsh is one of the oldest languages in the world. As a native speaker Ffion’s ethereal vocals create a bridge to that older world which was perfect for the themes of ancient history. Onur performed on a range of percussion including darbuka, bendir, frame drums, riq, cymbals, djembe and cajon, with their percussion parts fitting perfectly into the world music influences of the Homeworld universe. Additionally, Andrea’s performances on frame drum blended with Onur’s percussion to create a beautiful combination of sounds that also blended perfectly with Ffion’s vocals.
During his time in college in the late 1990’s, while playing in a middle eastern band, Sean Pádraig was introduced to the enchantment of the Armenian Duduk. The haunting tones of the Duduk actually showed up in the original Mission 1 track in Homeworld from 1999, so it’s great to have a live Duduk to expand upon that sound from the original game.
Hesham played the Oud, which is such a unique sounding instrument that brings an ancient and mysterious sound, while Konstantinos is proficient on a variety of percussion instruments and specializes in Eastern Mediterranean music that was used in creating the music for Homeworld 3.
Q. What impact has the pandemic had on how you create music and work with other musicians?
PR: The pandemic has not really had any impact on my work at the studio. Since its inception, Studio X Labs has embraced the remote work model, so the pandemic has improved the studio’s business climate because the rest of the world has had to adopt and move to this remote model. Also, with such a disruptive event as the pandemic, creative people are forced to think differently about how to achieve their goals, so the idea of remote developm

has had a blossoming under these conditions.
We record a lot of dialogue for various game projects and it’s such a better environment having just an engineer and actor at the studio with voice direction happening through video conferencing software. There can be up to 10 participants on a voice session, which would be an uncomfortable amount of people for us at Studio X Labs.
Beyond the pandemic, all the session musicians I worked with had their own recording setups at home, so I was able to send them the bedtracks and musical directions. In musical productions bedtracks are the bottom layers of tracks consisting of bass, drums, the main harmonic progression with chordal instruments like guitars or keyboards, and other musical effects. The musical bed is then given to an artist to compose the melody and lyrics on top. All the musicians were able to send back their performances that I was able to import into the master session. It allowed me to collaborate with amazing performers based in Italy, Turkey, Wales, Germany, and Greece.

Q. Has your process changed since writing for the previous games? How have the improvements in technology impacted your process?
PR:There is no question that the software and instrument libraries available today are a universe away from what was available back in the late 90s. It’s hard to believe that back then we were able to create music on such primitive systems compared to the horsepower and memory that are available now on a standard desktop system.
In terms of process, the technology has made the creation of music so much easier as the sonic quality of the libraries facilitate realizing musical ideas faster and the composing software allows for an ease of introducing live instrumental performances into those arrangements.
For someone like me who works primarily with hybrid music production, it really is what we dreamed about back in the day. Even with the improvements in technology, the thing that hasn’t changed is producing tracks of music that are not only appropriate to the game’s narrative and mood, but also are listenable and unique to the title.
I guess the downside of having all these great instrument libraries and software available is that so does everyone else. So, there is a danger of falling into the trap of producing music that sounds similar to what everyone else is producing. This is the huge advantage of collaborating with other instrumentalist that can bring such emotion and uniqueness to the music through their performances. So even though there are great libraries out there, for me, nothing really compares to having a live instrumentalist bring all their musical expertise to a track to really make something that is unique and listenable.

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