Smash hits

Something that represents the futuristic utopia of Star Trek and the nightmare of every right-wing populist is actually the name of a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA for short) from Trion Worlds. However, End of Nations is quite little known, as it was never released after its announcement in 2010 and has been unofficially canceled since March 2014. If you want to get a picture, you can watch the trailer from IGN, which promises 51 players on one map and looks like a game trailer from 2010 does.

What you can already hear in the video, however, is the work of Frank Klepacki. The composer was kind enough to put the 46-track-long score on his homepage . Anyone who knows me knows that I really appreciate Klepacki's hard rock style, especially in the scores for the Command & Conquer-series. You can also hear that in End of Nations - and I like it!

I have awared a total of eight tracks with 5 stars and - in my opinion - quite rightly so. You can already hear why with the 2nd track Liberation Conquest. It begins with a beautiful, solemn melody, supported by fanfares and a female singer with an almost Klepacki-untypical grandeur. At these points, the music is more reminiscent of epics such as Destiny or Guild Wars 2, but later returns to familiar territory with the use of the electric guitar.

In general, the OST for End of Nations represents a kind of turning point in the artist's discography. Although Klepacki's earlier scores for role-playing games such as Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993), Blade Runner (1997) and Nox (2000) proved that he was no stranger to genres beyond headbanging, he seemed to feel more at home with real-time strategy games that required a lot of musical horsepower. While he catered to this niche better with the aforementioned C&C-series, his work with the rather mediocre Universe at War: Earth Assault , for example, was less successful.

In this score, Klepacki manages the feat of preserving the old virtues of his rock style and adding new components. You can just tell that there doesn't seem to have been any design guidelines, so that the American could simply try things out wildly. Declaration of War and Liberation Front Gaining are more along the lines of Call of Duty 2 meets James Bond, The War Room is reminiscent of the Company of Heroes-series.

With ChinaTek, I'm treading on uncertain ground, because on the one hand, the opening sounds a bit like Blackout from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Secondly, I believe that Klepacki used a sample of the melody from Jeff van Dyck's Himalayan Echos (Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, from 0:19) for his China ode from 0:16 onwards. Of course, van Dyck's track could also be an adaptation of an existing (Chinese) song, but unfortunately I don't have the background information. Nevertheless, perhaps a nice piece of trivia that I think I've uncovered. Oh, and the track is pretty cool too!

I don't want to go into any further detail with the number of titles close to 50, especially since nobody has played this game anyway. On the other hand, it's all the more important to point out that the soundtrack is absolutely worth listening to. Despite my initial skepticism because of the okay Universe at War-score, Klepacki impressively proves here that he commands more troops in his army than the dull and effective mosher frontline. What he presents us here is a balanced (unit) composition that can do more than just smash.

Original Soundtrack


01			4
02			5
03			3
04			5
05			4
06			4
07			4
08			4
09			5
10			4

Smash hits

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