A fully orchestral score recorded with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester and it won Best Soundtrack at the German Developers Awards for a reason. Dynamedion's work on The Settlers: Rise of an Empire in 2007 goes way beyond what a city-builder needs, pulling in Latin and Oriental textures alongside traditional orchestral writing.
Read more
Rise of an Empire opens with this bold brass fanfare that immediately sets the scale. Riders of the Desert shifts into something more exotic with percussion patterns and woodwinds that feel genuinely North African. Kingdom of Ice goes cold and sparse, all high strings and distant brass.
Then Restful Meadows brings you back down with this gentle pastoral calm. Forty tracks deep and none of them phone it in. Strategy fans who care about production quality, this is the gold standard.