Greetings everyone!

I hope you all are enjoying the Falklands release! If by chance you are enjoying the loading music for the map, you can listen to it here: [YOUTUBE]unK-jQrVUew[/YOUTUBE]

The video description also includes the link to the tune's soundcloud page, where you can download it. Any comments and listener-ship you can lend would be greatly appreciated; film and video game music composition is the career path I have chosen in life, and I intend to excel at it, but visibility is about twice as important as proficiency in this business.

I will be uploading PR gameplay videos (hopefully half as epic as now-retired dbzao's endeavors in this regard), playthroughs from other titles, and new music onto this channel, so stay tuned.

Let's change tone a bit; less promotion, more blogging:

The opportunity to compose the music for The Falklands came up as Rhino, myself and a few others were working on the project back in May/June. The placeholder loading music was the MEC loading theme from vanilla BF2, and the disconnect between music and setting began getting to me as I loaded the map who-knows-how-many times. So I sat down, let my inspiration do its thing, and wrote this tune in an evening.

One of the many ways in which The Falklands deviates from the rest of Project Reality is that it is the first map (along with PR: Normandy) that is a direct re-enactment of a real-world conflict in the past. We've put a lot of effort into emulating the terrain, hardware, and sequence of the war to the best of our ability, but part of the outcome is realizing that this battlefield we are bringing to the community saw death and bloodshed 30 years ago. 649 Argentine families and 258 British families lost a loved one in the war. Countless more soldiers endured injuries, trauma, and captivity.

Therefore, it was clear to me that the standard gung-ho "Get ready to rumble!" aesthetic of shooter loading music would not be appropriate; indeed, Scott Tobin ([R-DEV]Alkali, our staff composer) has demonstrated that Project Reality's musical aesthetic, like its gameplay, is distinct from the genre norm. It is not our place as composers to glorify war, but the reality is that this is a game about combat, so instead, the music thematically revolves around the experience of the soldier. It is with Alkali's general approach to PR's music that I proceeded with the composition.

My goals for the Falklands map loading music were threefold: to help build anticipation for the player as they prepare to do battle on this map, to sensitively honor the history and heroism behind this virtual battleground, and to be aesthetically neutral between British and Argentine cultural music. Let me know how I did, and where this music takes you.

Cheers!

-Brent Hengeveld (Jafar Ironclad)