History Main / VariableMix

* ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' featured this to break up its repeating, low intensity track.

* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' adds lots of discordant, dramatic strings to the background music whenever you initiate combat or get closer to enemies. The music gets more and more dramatic and higher tempo the closer you are to an enemy, and it remains dramatic until the last nearby enemy is dead.

* In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken'', the music increases in intensity for each round of a match. In addition, a flange effect coats the music when the player's current character's HP is below 25%.

** Used to great effect in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRebirth'' where each region has both its own unique overworld theme (or themes, depending on the region) and a battle theme that it shares a base melody with allowing for the game to seamlessly switch in and out of them in combat. In addition, certain fights have their own unique version of that region's battle theme that follows this as well.

** ''[[VideoGame/NeedForSpeedHotPursuit Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit]]''. Each course has two music tracks: a rock and a techno track. The music changes in pace and intensity depending on several factors: each section of a track has several loops assigned to it and is affected by your grid position, speed and laps in the race (for example: being near the back at slower speeds uses a quieter portion while being, say, at the front at 100 mph on the final lap meant the music would be the most intense). There is even a special bit that plays when you crash (and sometimes that varies depending on location) as well as one when being chased (even that varies, the music is more intense the closer a cop is to you). This also applies to some tracks in ''Need for Speed II: Special Edition'' but doen't have the chase segments. Some tracks don't share this variable mix, such as "Halling Ass" and "Headless Horse" for Norway's Proving Grounds (since it is a simple oval track so a variable mix would've been unnecessary).
** ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted'' does this only during the cop chases.

*** During the Death Egg Robot boss in , the music starts out as a march. Once the second phase begins (when you first have to lure him to hit the bombs), it seamlessly turns into more of a rock song, then adding a faster drum beat for the final phase (One hit left) that plays all the way until the results screen.

*** [[spoiler:During the Broodals' giant robot battle, an ominous orchestral number will play in the background, but while the boss is vulnerable, it switches to a traditional Japanese arrangement of the piece. The music alterations are also used for other bosses, such as Torkdrift.]]

* The "We Sing" level in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' features the rock-opera piece "Herald of Darkness" by the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard (portrayed by the real-life band Music/PoetsOfTheFall), which plays as the player progresses through the roughly half hour-long level. Different sections of the level play different verses of the song, and are tied together with a variety of randomly selected guitar solos and instrumental sections that can be subtly looped and rearranged in any order for continuous music no matter how long the player takes, such that no two playthroughs of the level will have the exact same sound. [[https://www.facebook.com/markus.kaarlonen/posts/pfbid0wYnvkFfGkCWjbWTidjesCPRmPHvRU7XZGKp1StDZkSYgZ1zaep3U8ef1hnDEyyCal According to Poets member Markus Kaarlonen,]] the full piece contains roughly 130 discrete clips of music that can be rearranged into countless complete songs.

A hard cut to a different piece is one possible solution for a game, and it's not so jarring when disguised by a sound effect. But some titles make better use of their technology: in a variable mix, the background music changes subtly and smoothly depending on what is going on in the game. The running background music could have, for example, parallel parts that FadeIn and [[FadeOut out]] with the rising and falling action level, seamlessly transitioning from a bare-bone ambient haunting theme to a hard-rocking drum-backed metal anthem during combat, and back again after the last enemy has fallen. A clever bit of composing that has a very subtle but real influence on player immersion. The UsefulNotes/{{MIDI}} musical interface, in which music pieces are not saved as pre-recorded audio but rather as musical notation that is interpreted on-the-fly by the sound hardware, is well suited for this sort of thing, though from MediaNotes/TheSeventhGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames onward game developers have found ways of doing this with live music recordings as well.

* ''VideoGame/VegaStrike'' has background music varying [[labelnote:sets]] (in current v.0.5.1 -- 58 tracks in 27 lists)[[/labelnote]] by situation (which faction owns the system, whether it's peace/far enemy presence/battle) and for different planets or bases when the PlayerCharacter's ship is docked. Endlessly [[GameMod moddable]], since sets are plain m3u playlists and "dj" is a UsefulNotes/{{Python}} module.

* The "We Sing" level in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' features the rock-opera piece "Herald of Darkness" by the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard (portrayed by the real-life band Music/PoetsOfTheFall), which plays as the player progresses through the roughly half hour-long level. Different sections of the level play different verses of the song, and are tied together with a variety of randomly selected guitar solos and instrumental sections that can be looped and rearranged in any order for continuous music no matter how long the player takes, such that no two playthroughs of the level will have the exact same sound. [[https://www.facebook.com/markus.kaarlonen/posts/pfbid0wYnvkFfGkCWjbWTidjesCPRmPHvRU7XZGKp1StDZkSYgZ1zaep3U8ef1hnDEyyCal According to Poets member Markus Kaarlonen,]] the full piece contains roughly 130 discrete clips of music that can be rearranged into countless complete songs.

A hard cut to a different piece is one possible solution for a game, and it's not so jarring when disguised by a sound effect. But some titles make better use of their technology: in a variable mix, the background music changes subtly and smoothly depending on what is going on in the game. The running background music could have, for example, parallel parts that FadeIn and [[FadeOut out]] with the rising and falling action level, seamlessly transitioning from a bare-bone ambient haunting theme to a hard-rocking drum-backed metal anthem during combat, and back again after the last enemy has fallen. A clever bit of composing that has a very subtle but real influence on player immersion. The UsefulNotes/{{MIDI}} musical interface, in which music pieces are not saved as pre-recorded audio but rather as musical notation that is interpreted on-the-fly by the sound hardware, is well suited for this sort of thing, though from UsefulNotes/TheSeventhGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames onward game developers have found ways of doing this with live music recordings as well.

* ''VideoGame/HiFiRush'' not only does this (as a hybrid StylishAction-RhythmGame), but it does it with ''licensed'' music to surprisingly great effect, something that is rarely seen elsewhere. Tracks like [[Music/TheProdigy Invaders Must Die]] and [[Music/NineInchNails The Perfect Drug]] are cut into pieces and woven seamlessly into gameplay loops depending on your progress in boss fights. There is a StreamerFriendlyMode that introduces original tracks to replace the licensed music, but they still sound [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute very similar to the originals.]]