Steam Has Quietly Become The Best Place To Buy Videogame...

5 games I played this year made me rush out and buy their soundtracks, and each was rewarding to own in a different way.

Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!

I love game music. Always have. But it hasn't always loved me back. In the old days I had no choice but to resort to amateurishly recording sound tests onto tape so I could carry some sweet chiptune bangers with me at all times. In more recent years I've gone spelunking in places like iTunes, but inconsistent regional availability, seemingly random tags that omit or misspell an artist's name or list soundtracks under a generic publisher label can make game music frustratingly hard to find.

Thankfully, things are getting better—and especially on Steam. I can buy and listen to standalone soundtracks in a click or two. Capcom has enthusiastically embraced this new distribution method, offering over 100 albums on its store page, from headliners like Monster Hunter Wilds and Street Fighter 6 to games' that aren't available on Steam.

Heck, some like Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter were never even released on PC. Square Enix has more than a dozen Nier albums, including various special arranged selections, to treat my ears to.

The great thing about the soundtrack category on Steam is that it's more than just a dumping ground for terabytes of preexisting audio. It's a fertile and frequently updated landscape filled with generous freebies, phenomenal collections that traditional physical media would struggle to hold, and albums so obscure that even in this welcoming online space it's a minor miracle they exist at all. Here are some of my favourite surprises from this year.

The original Lies of P soundtrack was already a comprehensive 70 tracks long, with high quality FLAC files bundled alongside more typical mp3 duplicates for a great price. I happily bought it the instant I heard the quiet tune that plays inside Hotel Krat, all soft choirs and tastefully restrained melancholy.

With Overture carrying on in a similar tone, I was fully prepared to do the same thing again as soon as the accompanying album appeared on Steam. More music that makes it sound like I'm fighting the gods themselves one minute thanks to their epic strings and angelic vocals, transitioning into delicate song over piano melodies seemingly designed to em

Source: PC Gamer