My Top 20 Favourite Videogame Soundtracks

Videogames are my favourite medium of entertainment – they combine all of my favourite things, like pulsating action and intricate, long-form storytelling, all in an interactable package.

My other great love in life is music – so you can imagine the praise I hold for some of my favourite videogame soundtracks. For the sake of this top twenty I’ll only be counting original material (in other words, things like GTA’s radios or FIFA’s background playlists aren’t valid for this list). Oh, and I’ll limit my choices to one per franchise to stop series like Persona and Ace Attorney from dominating the ranking.

Before we begin, you can check out some of my related blog posts below:

20 – L. A. Noire

Rockstar are one of the premier game studios working today, and while their games may not always be smash-hits the associated soundtracks are always bangers.

“L. A. Noire” is exactly what I wanted from an old-timey detective game soundtrack – slick, jazzy, and with dark undertones.

19 – Red Dead Redemption 2

Lo and behold, Rockstar are at it again with the impactful soundtrack.

“Red Dead Redemption 2” is widely considered one of the best games of the modern generation, and its soundtrack is no slouch either. Personal favourites include the powerful “Unshaken” and the nerve-racking “Fleeting Joy” – which includes a subdued yet powerhouse performance by Colin Stetson on saxophone.

18 – Portal 2

Speaking of game studios that hardly ever miss, I wish Valve got back into the swing of things to finally make all of the much-anticipated threequels.

The soundtrack to “Portal 2” is one of the least serious on this list, but it’s tracks like “Want You Gone” that stick long in the memory.

17 – Assassin’s Creed II

There were plenty of Assassin’s Creed games that could’ve made this list, like “Black Flag” for its shanties and “Odyssey” for its mythical jingles, but this is the rare case of one individual song securing the game a spot on this list.

There are many great tracks in “Assassin’s Creed II”, but “Ezio’s Family” in particular has a good shout of being my favourite videogame song ever. Ubisoft use it as the unofficial Assassin’s Creed theme, so that’s got to count for something!

16 – Undertale

It’s incredible to me that Toby Fox designed “Undertale” from the ground up AND made its soundtrack. Talk about being multi-talented!

I love “Ruins” for the piano suite that morphs into something otherworldly, and “Megalovania” is a piece of videogame heritage for a reason.

15 – Hades

I wasn’t expecting to love “Hades” as much as I did, but everything about this hellish roguelike is refined to near perfection.

All of the battles and quieter moments have fantastic scores accompanying them, and the ending song “In the Blood” has been stuck in my head for over a year.

14 – The Last of Us

How do you score the apocalypse? Do you use blaring horns, or crazy synths, or heavy metal guitar shredding?

In the case of “The Last of Us” they went down the quieter, acoustic route, and it’s all the better for it. That main theme is one of the most iconic in all of gaming.

13 – Paradise Killer

“Paradise Killer” is not a well known detective game by any means, but if there’s one thing I want general gaming fans to take away from it it’s that the Vaporwave soundtrack pops off.

I spent hours walking around the island just enjoying the view and bopping to the music – if there’s a videogame world I’d want to live in (ignoring the gruesome murders and mass blood sacrifices), it’s this one.

12 – Elden Ring

All of the Dark Souls games have amazing soundtracks, but my personal favourite will always be “Elden Ring”.

It has some of the craziest battle themes I’ve ever heard, and that menu music never failed to hype me up.

11 – The Witcher 3

My favourite game of all time, so it’s no surprise “The Witcher 3” also has one of my favourite soundtracks.

This is fantasy scoring at its very best, as the quieter tracks feel steeped in history and the big show-stopping tracks get your blood pumping.

10 – DOOM (2016)

Mick Gordon famously used a chainsaw as an instrument on some of the “DOOM” and “DOOM Eternal” tracks. If that’s not a ringing endorsement I don’t know what is.

Both the 2016 revival and 2020’s “Eternal” are filled with heavy metal bangers, like “BFG Divison” and “The Only Thing They Fear Is You”, and they always make me want to rip and tear until it is done.

9 – Hollow Knight

“Hollow Knight” is a critical darling for its expansive world and lore, its Metroidvania influences, its gorgeous art style, its boundless creativity, the hard but rewarding combat and progression, the abundance of secrets in every corner … and even after all that its soundtrack is legendary.

Like in Soulsborne games the boss themes are fantastic, but it’s the quieter zone themes like “Dirtmouth” and “Greenpath” that I absolutely adore.

8 – Halo 3

Duh duh duh DAAAAH, duh duh duh DAAAH, duh duh duh DAAAH, duh duh duh DAHDAHDAH!

The Halo soundtracks always have it all, from its serene yet haunting theme to the intense drums that play while you’re driving a Warthog off an exploding superstructure. If I had to pick a favourite soundtrack entry from the franchise, I’d go for the “Halo 3” OST based purely on nostalgia.

7 – Celeste

I went into “Celeste” expecting a challenging platformer, but what I got instead was a deep and personal story of stress and anxiety in the guise of a platformer.

The soundtrack varies from chill to hype, with some of the background music like “Resurrections” sounding futuristic and otherworldly.

6 – Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

A series about high school students brutally murdering each other … so Masafumi Takada said “Hey, I’m gonna make this soundtrack slap!”

The investigation and trial themes are amazing in all three games, but I’d give the edge to the first entry “Trigger Happy Havoc” for its industrial aesthetic and foreboding atmosphere.

5 – Persona 5 Royal

I’ve given this slot to “Personal 5 Royal”, but I could’ve easily given it instead to “Persona 4 Golden” or “Persona 3” (Reload or FES or Portable or whatever) or “Persona 5 Strikers”. This series is becoming the gold standard for videogame soundtracks.

P5R has some wonderfully jazzy tracks that ooze style with every note, and some songs like “Last Surprise” and “Rivers in the Desert” are still mainstays in my playlist.

4 – Skyrim

Alongside “The Witcher 3”, I’d place “Skyrim” in my top two favourite games of all time. Unlike the Witcher, however, a lot of my nostalgia from “Skyrim” comes from its soundtrack.

I wouldn’t be able to name specific tracks other than the famous “Dohvahkiin” refrain – it’s the ambient tracks in general as you’re exploring the expansive world that have stuck in my memory.

3 – Ace Attorney

I’m breaking my one-per-franchise rule for the “Ace Attorney” series. I love the soundtrack of almost every game dearly, and in this moment I couldn’t pick a favourite … maybe I should make a separate ranking one day.

The investigation themes are always peppy, the character themes are packed with intricacies, and the Pursuit themes always make the courtroom segments a riot.

2 – Minecraft

For the longest time I couldn’t decide on the number one spot, and for a while “Minecraft” topped this list, but after a last-minute change I’ve put it in an admirable second place.

C418’s ambient works exist as both a fantastic videogame soundtrack as well as a landmark album in the ambient genre – not many videogame soundtracks can say that!

1 – Super Mario Galaxy

My brain says “Minecraft” is the best videogame soundtrack, but in the end I decided to follow my heart.

“Super Mario Galaxy” is a game I continue to have a huge nostalgia for, and the soundtrack is a major part of that. Every song here is bursting with character, like the uproarious “Buoy Base Galaxy” and the ethereal “Space Junk Galaxy”, but the magnum opus has to be the show-stopping “Gusty Garden Galaxy”.

Above all else, this is the soundtrack that transports me far away from reality – which is arguably the most important thing a videogame soundtrack can do.

Aaaaand that’s my list! You can check out some of my latest blog posts below: