'I can't completely get into his head' – Death Stranding's Ludvig Forssell on scoring Kojima's world
Speaking to composer Ludvig Forssell and vocalist Jenny Plant about bringing Kojima-san’s Death Stranding series to life through emotional music and an otherworldly soundscape.
Video game soundtracks are treated with a newfound sense of respect these days, yet few are as haunting or overwhelmingly expressive as the tracks featured in Hideo Kojima’s two Death Standing games. Primarily the work of Swedish composer, Ludvig Forssell, he’d been collaborating with the Japanese auteur ever since 2015’s Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
The two enjoyed working together so much that when Kojima-san first spun up his new production studio in 2015 and began development on the first Death stranding, it only made sense for the two creators to collaborate once again.
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Fast forward a decade later and we now sit a few months removed from the launch of the critically acclaimed PlayStation exclusive, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Once again it contains a wildly expressive score that gets to the heart of the emotional journeys Sam must embark on. Initially across a divided America, and similarly a version of future Australia in need of connecting as part of the sequel.
Death Stranding fans over the globe will soon get to experience the franchise’s music live as part of the Death Stranding Strands of Harmony World Tour, which appropriately kicks off in Sydney on November 8, 2025. To learn more about what attendees should expect as part of the concert tour, well as the thinking behind the first game’s most memorable track, BB’s Theme, I spoke to composer Ludvig Forssell and vocalist Jenny Plant.
Ludvig Forssell: After we finished Metal Gear Solid 5 and Hideo started up the new Kojima Productions, I reached out and said that I wanted to continue that work with him no matter what he was doing at the time, basically. I obviously didn't know about Death Stranding. I think only he really had the idea in his head.
But yes, I reached out and they said they wanted me to come along as composer and audio director, and [that] they were going to have a really small audio team. I got the gig and spent the first couple of months trying to figure out what Death Stranding was after getting the elevator pitch on it. But it was basically just continuing on the relationship from what we'd done with Metal Gear.
Ludvig:
Having worked with Mr. Kojima for close to 15 years, you get a good feeling for the kind of person he is. But even to somebody like me, I can't completely get into his head. He has so many different ideas that are so completely out there that you can only really hope to understand what his intentions are. He's really a one-man show and leads the entire team with so much detail in each single part of production. I don't think anybody really does it the way he does it.
It really comes down to us trying to interpret what his vision is and getting as close to that as we can as we're doing it. At the end of the day, he's really the only one who completely knows what exactly everything is supposed to be. And, ultimately, I think he always gets to what he imagined from the very get-go. But at the beginning, all of us are really just trying to understand as well as we can what the final goal is, which he usually always has in mind.
Ludvig: The first thing that Hideo basically told me is that he wanted a lullaby. And the way we'd been implementing music into the game also meant that we sort of wanted something with a few shorter motifs that were easier to remember and we could reuse throughout the entire story of everything.
Even though [BB’s Theme] is sort of an epic beast, still having it be a very simple lullaby-esque melody was the initial idea. Then also, with finding someone like Jenny, [we wanted to] then transcend the idea and have that come into fruition with the right kind of soothing voice
Jenny Slant: I love the dynamic range in the piece and how softly I can sing. The opening is so special and then as it grows, vocally it's such an awesome piece to perform. It really gets the lullaby aspect exactly. I mean, I'm a mum myself as well, and now it really gets to that emotion even more now when I sing it.
Jenny: Well first there was the BAFTA awards back in 2020 where we couldn't do it. There was also the video game awards before that and I couldn't perform with that either because of COVID. So we never got to properly meet even in person and perform it.
But then earlier this year, we did at the London Soundtrack Awards festival. We performed at the Roundhouse and it was so cool. And it's given a taste of what's to come. Honestly, it's so epic. It was such an amazing feeling having the orchestra behind and singing that song. It's a really special feeling and I'm very, very excited to do it all again.
Ludvig: Yeah, exactly what Jenny said. I think another thing to add is that this song really lends itself well to be performed by a full orchestra. Obviously, the original track only had strings, but now we're doing it with brass percussion and woodwinds and harps and shit. It really builds upon what the original one was and stands out as a really finely tuned orchestral piece in this setting. So that's something that I really look forward to have people get a taste of as well.
Ludvig: I personally think that it's just a very natural progression of things. There's a demand for it out there. People don't really think about video game music the way they used to back in the day, so why should it be seen differently? I'm just happy that there are people getting these shows going. The gaming industry hadn't done it that much before, even if people wanted to do it, they probably didn't have the means to do that. So having that to kick everything off more and more is really important. We're super grateful that we're able to do it just because of that.
Jenny: It's absolutely incredible. Film music has been doing this for ages and it absolutely makes complete sense to bring this score to life. I also can't wait to meet some of the fans. It is so nice for them to hear this music live, obviously, and they've couple reach out to me saying [they] can't wait to me. It's amazing to see how much BB's Theme means to people. I feel really excited to be able to sing it and bring that to life.
Ludvig:
On the whole, since the Death Stranding soundtrack is a collaboration between my side of the score, and then all these fantastic artists, their input... All these great people writing music that you probably haven't heard that much in video games before. The versatility of what the concert will actually bring is something that I don't think you'd get from any other game concerts.
Also having the visuals from the game coupled on the big screen above the orchestra will probably make for a very 3D experience when hearing this music. Music and connecting to all the memories for the people who went through the story and went through all these situations that will be again played back on the big screen I think will be a transcendent experience.