Year: 2003
Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)
Composer(s): Kai Walter
Number of tracks: 15

★★★★★

Drums from the deep sea

Aquanox 2: Revelation (or as it could also be called in view of the last climate conference: the future), is the sequel to the Archimedean Dynasty-series from German developer studio Massive Development and is set - Latin fans have already guessed - in the dark depths of the sea. Humanity has fucked up, the earth has literally sunk and all land is covered by water. However, the survivors have adapted, made themselves as comfortable as possible underwater and are now living in submarine enclaves on the seabed. As the whole thing is set in the 27th century and mankind is still mankind, they naturally do not coexist peacefully, but with plenty of potential for conflict.

Accordingly, the gameplay is designed as a kind of space simulation in the sea, in which we engage in dogfights with other submarines, an excellent experience due to the inertia of the water and the three-dimensionality. We can use different weapon classes and assemble our ship however we want, just like in the MechWarrior-series. I really enjoyed Aquanox 2 back then thanks to the varied missions, the good synchro, the fresh setting and the dense atmosphere.

The fact that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when quietly driving through the underwater canyons was not only due to the darkness of the deep sea, which naturally limited the vision in a way that saved CPU resources in the early 2000s, but also because of the music. It was composed by Kai Walter, who, according to his entry on MobyGames , otherwise only composed for even lesser-known games. That's a shame, because the score, as generic as it may be, has a certain something.

Maybe it's my nostalgia, but for me Walter creates an auditory ambience with the tracks that fits like a hatch on a dock ring: dark, gloomy and menacing, the steampunk sounds, as we know them from the Thief-series, waft out of the speakers. Many of them are accompanied by a reverberation that reinforces the deep-sea theme like an echo sounder. This fits in beautifully with the gameplay, but feels lackluster without the accompanying visuals, since there isn't much exciting happening within the tracks themselves.

Fortunately, apart from these ambient tracks, which can be easily identified on my list by their low rating, there are also the battle tracks. In these, Walter ventures into the rock and grunge genre, as we know it from Frank Klepacki and the Command & Conquer-series, for example. Warzone, Pursuit, Hektik, Darkness and Dogfight sound like the attempts of a late 90s garage band who use the absence of the singer to emulate the The Matrix-score - cool, but somewhat replaceable. Still, I'm glad for these little submarine islands in the sea of background noise, because I remember that the music made my pulse shoot to unexpected heights while I was playing.

Apart from these expected action pieces, the score of Aquanox 2: Revelation offers the track Mystery, which connoisseurs will probably associate most closely with the feel of the series: Sci-fi synths accompany the dominant brass, while a steady beat like the shockwave of an underwater explosion rolls over the strings, somehow reminding me of Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos Added to this are vocals that take the track to a whole other emotional level.

My personal highlight of the OST, however, is Order. The rhythmic pounding of the beats, the ominous humming that is broken up by strings, only to continue brute force again like an unyielding icebreaker in the freezing Arctic Ocean, the track goes on and on, on and on. Something about it feels right to me, it just fits so well with this game, but also works on its own. Menacing, dark and relentless - I like it.

Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Biont Buel	Kai Walter	2
02	Darkness	Kai Walter	3
03	Descent	Kai Walter	2
04	Dogfight	Kai Walter	3
05	Hektik	Kai Walter	3
06	In the Darkness	Kai Walter	2
07	Mystery	Kai Walter	4
08	Order	Kai Walter	5
09	Pursuit	Kai Walter	3
10	Revelation	Kai Walter	3
11	Rise	Kai Walter	1
12	Search the Grave	Kai Walter	1
13	The Angel's Tears	Kai Walter	1
14	The Deep	Kai Walter	1
15	Warzone	Kai Walter	3