Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons was set in the mysterious continent of Cantha, a land inspired by East Asian culture and tradition, especially Korean, and that inspiration guided the development of the game's original score. Traditional Korean music (gugak) is almost entirely unrepresented in all of Western media, let alone games. Our intention was to incorporate it respectfully and honor what makes it unique from other traditional East Asian music that is well represented in popular culture. We brought in experts on Korean culture and music to consult and contribute to the soundtrack. Our goal was to accurately represent the rhythms, melodic structures, and performance techniques of the unique instruments found in gugak music. We did our best to represent each of them and write idiomatically for them, adapting the orchestral and electronic elements to support them rather than use them as gloss over the top of a generic Hollywood "fantasy Asia" sound. We worked with soloists based in Seoul, including performers from the National Orchestra of Korea, a traditional ensemble founded in 1995 by the South Korean governement, as well as those on the cutting edge of modern gugak fusion, pushing their ancient instruments into the future.