Content area

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the presence of Western historical music in contemporary video games. Through a combination of music-theoretical analysis, iconography, and Peircean semiotics, the author demonstrates that the nondiegetic soundtracks of fantasy role-playing video games utilize elements of major style periods in music history—including the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras—to enhance existing representations of time and place in their visual environments. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in three games, which serve as case studies: Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), and Elden Ring (2022). Ultimately, the project contributes research to both ludomusicology and historical musicology, as it reveals that historical music serves an essential contextualizing function in role-playing video games and, by extension, that those same games can be sites of productive discussions about archetypal genres and styes from a wide range of periods throughout Western music history.

Details

1010268
Title
Playing Through Music History: The Contextualizing Function of Western Historical Music in Fantasy Role-Playing Video Games
Number of pages
233
Publication year
2025
Degree date
2025
School code
0254
Source
MAI 86/12(E), Masters Abstracts International
ISBN
9798280709911
Committee member
Braunschweig, Karl; Blaszkiewicz, Jack
University/institution
Wayne State University
Department
Music
University location
United States -- Michigan
Degree
M.A.
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language
English
Document type
Dissertation/Thesis
Dissertation/thesis number
31939945
ProQuest document ID
3216739980
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/playing-through-music-history-contextualizing/docview/3216739980/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
Database
ProQuest One Academic