30 of the Best Video Game Theme Songs of All Time
I’ve been a gamer for most of my life, starting with simple games on my old Macintosh 128K, diving deep with the classics of my GameBoy and N64 collections, and then surfing up the years with XBOX and my growing collection of PC titles.
During these years, one thing has stuck out for me above all others: that the best games are those with a killer score. The most unforgettable games in my memory are the ones with music that stirred my soul. Whether somber or uplifting, a great video game soundtrack ties a game together and produces in the player a sense of what J.R.R. Tolkien might have termed “enchantment”, where the player is so totally immersed that they experience the game as a child might experience a story being told: totally brimming with life.
This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, but contains a wide-ranging collection of my personal favorites from the world of video game soundtracks, as well as hitting at least one title from every decade starting in the 1980s through to 2021.