Best video game soundtracks of all time

Persona 5 Royal▲ Rising

Shoji Meguro's acid-jazz-meets-funk score turns a JRPG about teen phantom thieves into a full-blown fashion statement, with 'Life Will Change' and the velvet-lounge menace of 'Beneath the Mask' making every random encounter feel like a heist in a Tokyo nightclub. It proved a video game soundtrack could have genre coherence and swagger like a concept album, not just mood cues. That confidence single-handedly rebranded JRPG music for a new generation raised on Spotify playlists, not just chiptune nostalgia.

Year: 2020Critic score: 9.5/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

Hollow Knight▲ Rising

Christopher Larkin's score haunts Hallownest with mournful strings and choral swells that make a bug kingdom's ruin feel operatic, nowhere more so than the tragic duet of the Radiance and the Pale King echoing through the White Palace. It never shouts for attention, yet tracks like 'Dirtmouth' and 'Greenpath' became ambient staples for an entire indie generation. Its case rests on restraint: proof that atmosphere and heartbreak can out-power bombast.

Year: 2017Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2▲ Rising

Goldfinger's 'Superman' blasting over a warehouse gap-combo is practically tattooed onto a generation's brainstem, and the rest of the licensed punk-and-ska lineup — Dead Kennedys, Papa Roach, Naughty by Nature — turned a skating game into a mixtape that defined early-2000s teenage identity. It didn't compose a score so much as curate a cultural moment, proving licensed soundtracks could be as iconic as original ones. Two decades later, hearing those first guitar chords still means one thing: drop in and start grinding.

Year: 2000Critic score: 9.4/10

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Outer Wilds

Andrew Prahlow's score hides its masterstroke in silence and slowness — the campfire banjo of 'Travelers' theme swelling into full orchestral harmony only when you finally find every wandering musician scattered across the solar system. The finale, as the sun goes supernova and that theme blooms into a farewell hymn, turns astrophysics-flavored heartbreak into one of gaming's great emotional gut-punches. It earns its spot by making a soundtrack's structure mirror its story's mystery, paying off patience with pure catharsis.

Year: 2019Critic score: 9.3/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Hades

Darren Korb's score fuses driving rock riffs with Greek myth gravitas, turning Tartarus runs into headbanging fugue states and giving Zagreus's endless deaths a heroic pulse instead of dread. 'Good Riddance' and the boss themes for Meg, Theseus, and Hades himself escalate with the narrative, rewarding hundreds of runs with music that actually evolves alongside the story. It's the rare roguelike soundtrack that makes repetition feel like momentum, not grind.

Year: 2020Critic score: 9.3/10

added by IJRin 7 rankings

Celeste▼ Falling

Lena Raine's score turns platforming anxiety into synth-driven catharsis, with 'Resurrections' hitting like a wall of emotional velocity right as Madeline claws up the mountain's hardest climbs. It matches the game's themes of panic and self-acceptance beat for beat, never just decorating difficulty but narrating it. Few soundtracks so perfectly turn frustration into triumph, which is why chiptune-adjacent synth music owes it a serious debt.

Year: 2018Critic score: 9.2/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

Undertale▼ Falling

Toby Fox wrote and produced an entire soundtrack alone, and somehow 'Megalovania' became a meme-generating, orchestra-covered pop-culture juggernaut that outgrew the indie RPG that spawned it. From the skeletal bounce of 'Bonetrousle' to the quiet devastation of 'His Theme,' the score carries every emotional swing of a story about mercy and consequence. Its legacy is inescapable: a bedroom-composed OST that ended up on actual orchestral stages worldwide.

Year: 2015Critic score: 9/10

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Ori and the Will of the Wisps▼ Falling

Gareth Coker's sequel score goes bigger and sadder than the original, pairing full orchestra with mournful vocals for moments like Ku's flight through the storm, a sequence that turns platforming mechanics into pure emotional flight. It elevates a Metroidvania into something closer to a Studio Ghibli film scored by John Williams' gentler cousin. The soundtrack's ambition — grief, wonder, and triumph all inside one forest — argues that indie games can out-emote AAA blockbusters.

Year: 2020Critic score: 9/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings