User:Khanassassin/Sandbox: Music

Broken Sword is a media franchise centered on a series of adventure games developed by Revolution Software, currently including four installments: The Shadow of the Templars (1996), The Smoking Mirror (1997), The Sleeping Dragon (2003) and The Angel of Death (2006), as well as a director's cut of the original and a remastered installment of the second installment. Each installment features a soundtrack played by an orchestra, with The Angel of Deaths and the Director's Cuts soundtrack featuring some electronic and pop songs by a band or singer. While Barrington Pheloung composed the music in the first two installments, as well as returning to compose new tracks in the Director's Cut, the music in the third and fourth installment was composed by Ben McCullough.

The soundtrack of the fourth installment and the Director's Cut were released on the iTunes and as a bonus for purchase at GOG.com, with five tracks from The Sleeping Dragon being available for download from Revolution's website. The music is one of the most praised elements of the series, with Pheloung's theme in The Shadow of the Templars being listed as one of the greatest themes in video game history by Computer and Video Games.

Development
A few years before development of Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars began, series creator and Revolution CEO Charles Cecil had played for a cricket team with the Australian composer Barrington Pheloung, who's best known for his work on the Inspector Morse television series. Cecil decided to contact him to suggest that he compose the music, as he felt he could create " excellent, evocative music for [Revolution's] games," and Barrington took the offer. While Pheloung returned to compose the soundtrack in The Shadow of the Templars' first sequel released a year later in 1997, Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, composer Ben McCullough composed the music in the later two sequels, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (2003) and Broken Sword: The Angel of Death (2006); Revolution employed McCullough for The Sleeping Dragon, but for The Angel of Death as a freelance artist. In a 2003 interview about The Sleeping Dragon, former game designer at Revolution Steve Ince said the following about the change of the composer: "We obviously owe a lot to Barrington Pheloung. He did fabulous music for us. We certainly don’t want anyone to think that we were unhappy with what he has done for us in the past. But, because of the way in which we are working and implementing, we wanted someone to design the system and write the music along with that. Ben McCullough, our in-house musician/audio manager, really understands game music and is going to be developing our audio to be a full surround sound experience." However, Pheloung returned as the composer in Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut, first released in 2009.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon track releases from Revolution
Revolution made five tracks from The Sleeping Dragon's soundtrack by McCullough available for free download on their website.

Broken Sword: The Angel of Death: Soundtrack to the Video Game
Broken Sword: The Angel of Death: Soundtrack to the Video Game was released on the iTunes Store on September 12, 2006. It features six tracks by McCullough, and four tracks by electronic band Übernoise. Published by Sugarstar Limited, the soundtrack is added as a bonus for purchase of the game, released on September 2, 2010, on GOG.com.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut Original Soundtrack
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut Original Soundtrack was released on the iTunes Store on December 28, 2009. It features 10 tracks by Pheloung; while eight are remastered tracks from the original, "Puzzle Solving" and "Fathers Secret" were newly composed tracks. It also features three tracks by pop artist Miles Gilderdale, two of which feature Jade Herbert. Published by Sugarstar, an expanded version is added as a bonus for purchase of the game at GOG.com.

Reception
The music in Broken Sword has received much praise from critics. Computer and Video Games placed Pheloung's The Shadow of the Templars theme at No. 21 on their list of "The 100 best themes of all time".