Nicht grottig

I don't remember if I ever got into the regions that were added in Underworld . Basically, I only remember that the expansion introduced the playable classes Dwarf and Demon to the game. As with the main game, the fascination for me came from the co-op aspect, and you can only play a hack and slay for as long as the other player wants to. Or, as in my case at the time, is in the same room as the PC I brought with me. After all, my parents didn't have internet access back in 2005, so we inevitably had to play on a LAN. Anyway, I probably didn't miss much anyway.

"But those who really miss out are those who haven't listened to the soundtrack", you could say, if it weren't for the music for Sacred Underworld . For the addon, Matthias Steinwachs was assisted by composer Dag Winderlich, which in my opinion did not affect the core of the score (or score core) in any way. Cobbler sticks to his last and Sacred sticks to its lack of motifs. The melodies go straight into the ear and out again without an interlude, nothing really sticks.

Games from the Sacred-series

Sacred (2004)

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (2008)

Sacred 3 (2014)

What is remarkable is that the composition manages to sound more old-fashioned than games from the same year. In 2004, for example, the fantastic Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic, the still popular World of Warcraft, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV or Sims 2were released. Presumably an attempt was made to copy the style of Matt Uelmen and the Diablo-series, but these also came out in 1996 (Diablo) and 2000 (Diablo II) , which is still at least five years earlier!

Now you could describe the soundtrack as 'underground' in reference to the name Sacred Underworld, but that would be unfair. It fits in very well with the actual game, which as a whole comes across as old-fashioned and a little outdated. That doesn't have to be a bad thing in the case of the actual game, after all, games of this type do have their charm. If you leave out the game itself, the music unfortunately falls behind.