Planet Zoo is releasing on 5 November 2019. Created by Frontier Developments, the game is said to be the spiritual successor to the likes of the Zoo Tycoon series. The popular South African choir, Young Mbazo were the minds behind the game’s truly-African soundtrack.
RELATED: 50 Most Anticipated Games of 2019
[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoXPkZdOlhk”]
In the latest development video by the Planet Zoo team, it was revealed Frontier headed to Cape Town to meet up with Young Mbazo to record not only the game’s theme song but other tracks that will feature in the upcoming zoo simulator.
Frontier’s Head of Audio, Jim Croft explained why he decided to go with Young Mbazo;
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#FD5D13″ class=”” size=”19″]I had dreamed of working some day with their grandfathers – the guys from Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who had famously worked on Paul Simon’s Graceland, which is one of my all-time favourite albums. The Planet Zoo theme song was calling out for an African Choir, so I aimed high! Once we’d made contact with their manager it became clear that Young Mbazo would be a better fit and the best of both worlds – all that young energy and enthusiasm combined with an awesome legacy sound[/perfectpullquote]
South African pop singer and composer, Toya Delazy was also part of this collaboration along with Frontier composer JJ Ipsen from Canada.
Jim Croft goes onto explain the importance of an “authentic” soundtrack for Planet Zoo saying he wanted to create a warm, homespun, honest sound and that human performance counters listening fatigue.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#FD5D13″ class=”” size=”19″]Which is a thing we have to think about in these kinds of sandbox games because people can play them for huge lengths of time. We have built a playback system based on fuzzy logic that looks at what the player is up to and what is around the camera and tries to find the sweet spots for the most apt times for the score to play.
Human playing is part of this – the ear will always pick up repetition in highly quantized music; a human cannot play two notes the same way. I have tried to work with genuine artists with very much their own sound. I feel it brings so much more richness to the score. Planet Coaster’s “You, Me and Gravity” album is the kind of music you can put on at home and happily cook to! I’m hoping the Planet Zoo album will be the same. I think people are going to love what we have done![/perfectpullquote]
It is always great news when South African music if put into the spotlight and Planet Zoo will be a great fit for Young Mbazo’s unique African flavour. We cannot wait to crank that volume up when we are playing the game this November.
