God Of War Composer Pushed Sony To Rethink Game Audio – And They Rebuilt The Engine

How a gamer-composer shook up PlayStation audio

Composer Bear McCreary — known for work on Dark Void, SOCOM 4 U.S. Navy SEALs and God of War — recently opened up about his conversations with Sony PlayStation in an interview on the Toilet Ov Hell YouTube channel. McCreary, a lifelong gamer, brought a player’s perspective to studio meetings and didn’t hold back about what he thought was wrong with typical game music design.

His critiques weren’t academic — they were practical and player-first. McCreary said the usual audio cues and repetition often feel like a punishment to gamers, undercutting immersion and making players feel reset instead of carried forward by the music.

“I walked in as a gamer and gave them a simple complaint — hearing the same track as a punishment when you die or getting music cues before the moment makes you feel like you’re playing a game, not living in one.”

Other studios told him to stick to composing – Sony took a different route

McCreary says that several game companies reacted to his observations by essentially telling him to focus on composing. Sony’s response was markedly different – rather than dismissing the issues, they asked how to work around the technical limits that enforced those old audio habits.

Sony’s willingness to pivot meant the team explored solving the problem at the software level. Instead of altering only the music, they considered the underlying audio systems that drive how music reacts to gameplay, which opened the door to more nuanced, player-friendly audio behavior.

Building a new audio engine – starting with SOCOM 4

The collaboration goes back to McCreary’s earlier PlayStation work on SOCOM 4. There, Sony and McCreary teamed up to create a new audio engine for PlayStation games that could get around the constraints he was criticizing. That work set a precedent for tackling audio at the engine level rather than just the score.

That same mindset reappeared years later during development on God of War: Ragnarok. McCreary again pressed the team to rethink how the game handled transitions and endings in musical cues so the soundtrack would feel less like a signpost and more like part of the world.

What he changed in God of War: Ragnarok

During Ragnarok’s production, McCreary noticed a jarring pattern: music would cut off instantly when an enemy was defeated. He wanted the score to play through to its natural ending and then fade out smoothly, instead of stopping as a hard signal that the combat moment was over.

That attention to detail pushed developers to revisit the audio pipeline so music could behave more organically with gameplay — carrying emotional weight rather than punctuating failure or success with abrupt cues.

Why this matters for players and creators

McCreary’s story highlights how a composer’s player-driven perspective can reshape technical choices across a studio. When teams are willing to retool engines and audio middleware, the result is often a more immersive, emotionally coherent game soundtrack.