David Wise is a British video game music composer and musician. He was a composer at Rare from 1985 to 2009, and was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He has gained a following for his work on various games, particularly Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country series. Wise is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.
The "DK Rap" is the introductory theme music for the 1999 Nintendo 64 video game Donkey Kong 64. Its lyrics were written by Rare designer George Andreas, who performed the vocals for the song, and musician Grant Kirkhope, who composed the melody. Rare staffers contributed vocals to the chorus. Its lyrics describe the five playable characters in the game, with Kirkhope's goal to juxtapose the previous iteration of Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong Country against the new one.
Pinar Toprak is a Turkish-born American composer, conductor, and musician, who specializes in creating thematic scores.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 2008 platform game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000), Nuts & Bolts follows the bear-and-bird duo Banjo and Kazooie as they compete with the witch Gruntilda for ownership of their home. Although Nuts & Bolts retains the structure of previous Banjo-Kazooie games—collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces to progress—it shifts the focus from exploration to vehicle construction. The player designs vehicles, including automobiles, boats, and aeroplanes, and uses them to complete challenges across various worlds. In multiplayer modes, players can compete or share their vehicles over Xbox Live.
Alex Heffes is a British film composer. His film scores include those for the BAFTA-winning Touching the Void, and Oscar-winning movies One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland, and Inside Job. Heffes was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for his work on Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Ilan Eshkeri is a British composer known for his concert music, films scores and artist collaborations.
Olivier Derivière is a French video game composer, best known for his work on the Alone in the Dark, Obscure, Remember Me and Streets of Rage 4 soundtracks. His work on Remember Me won the 2013 IFMCA award for Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media.
Abel Korzeniowski is a Polish composer of film and theatre scores.
Steve Burke is a British video game composer, sound designer and voice actor. He is mostly known for his work at the British video game developer Rare.
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) is a professional association for online, print and radio journalists who specialize in writing about original film and television music.
The music in the Civilization video game series has been composed by various composers.
Austin Wintory is an American composer for film and video games. He is known for scoring the video games Flow and Journey, the latter of which made history as the only video game soundtrack to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Leigh Phillips is a composer, orchestrator, and conductor of music for film, media, and theatre. In addition to this, he is responsible for developing unique orchestrations, and arrangements, of film-music for live concert performance and recording.
Yooka-Laylee is a 2017 platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. It was released for Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in April 2017, Nintendo Switch in December 2017 and Amazon Luna in October 2020. Developed by a group of former key personnel from Rare, Yooka-Laylee is a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series. After years of planning to develop a new game, Playtonic Games initiated a Kickstarter campaign that attracted significant media coverage and raised a record-breaking sum of over £2 million. The game follows chameleon Yooka and bat Laylee on their quest to retrieve a magical book from an evil corporation.
Playtonic Games Limited is a British video game developer founded in 2014. It consists in large part of former members of Rare.
Gareth Coker is a British composer. He has composed work for video games, including Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, ARK: Survival Evolved, ARK: Survival Ascended, Halo Infinite and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Geoff Knorr is an American composer, orchestrator, and sound designer. He has worked on video game titles such as Civilization V, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Civilization VI, Galactic Civilizations III, and Ashes of the Singularity.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is an action-adventure tactical role-playing game developed by Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Paris and published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Switch video game console. The game is a crossover between Nintendo's Mario and Ubisoft's Rabbids franchises. Its story follows Mario, his friends and the Rabbids, who must save the Mushroom Kingdom from the latter's invading brethren following their mishandling of an avid Mario fan's powerful invention in their world.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a 2019 platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. As a spin-off to Yooka-Laylee (2017), the game was released digitally for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on October 8, 2019, followed by a version for Amazon Luna on October 20, 2020.
