What are the best Video Game Soundtracks?

Every Supergiant game should be on this list,

NieR:Automata

FFVII (especially the 10 minute FFVII remake of One-Winged Angel)

Cyberpunk 2077 had some good ones. I'm digging I Really Want to Stay at Your House

Hades

Kingdom Hearts (Wave of Darkness is pretty great)

It's not my normal thing, but Doom's soundtrack really gets the juices flowing and fits beautifully with fast paced frantic gameplay.

Edit: 2016 Mick Gordon

Chrono Trigger, of course. Some legendary tracks in there that transcend their limitations. The Deadbolt OST, Katana ZERO's OST. Nier Automata, Street Fighter V.

Oblivion and Skyrim as well. Really there are too many excellent game soundtracks to possibly list in a comment

GTA Vice City

Hotline Miami. God damn, so good.

Here are my personal favorites:

AI War / AI War 2 - Pablo Vega
Dragon Quest series - Koichi Sugiyama
Final Fantasy VII - Nobuo Uematsu
Final Fantasy XI - Nobuo Uematsu and others
The Last of Us - Gustavo Santaolalla
Medal of Honor - Michael Giacchino
Offworld Trading Company - Christopher Tin
Stellaris - Andreas Waldetoft (I didn't notice that this game was just an idle clicker for a long time because the music was so damn good)
Tidalis - Pablo Vega (especially the piano versions)
A Valley Without Wind - Pablo Vega

Bloodborne has an amazing soundtrack. Here's an example of one of the epic songs:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NHIkUzmNmc0

• Battleblock Theater (goat main menu track)
• Hades (amazing combat music)
• Hollow Knight (most atmospheric)
• Undertale + Deltarune (great range, captures a lot of emotions throughout the story)

Persona 5 and 4. The soundtracks can stand on their own as just great music.

Donkey Kong Country. Good Jams!

The legend of Zelda always had the most iconic themes (personal favorite is Dragonroost island from Wind waker, but they really all have some amazing music).

I also listen to the Chrono Trigger and Octopath traveler OSTs on my free time.

Cyberpunk 2077,Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, Zelda Breath of the Wild, and the Metal Gear Series.

For licensed tracks, Burnout 3 Takedown wins it for me. Great driving music (obvs) and generally just a blast of uplifting pop punk.

Sonic Mania is one I always fall back on, the tracks are fun as hell and I don't think there's a single one I don't like. Shoutout to the Studiopolis act 1, Studiopolis act 2, and Press Garden act 2 tracks.

Mega Man 2. Can't believe I scrolled the whole comments and did not see Mega Man 2.

Witcher 3. Surprised I haven't seen it yet. The vase game is totally the best in my ears, especially the Skellige soundtrack but the expansions are also a blast!

https://youtu.be/NknjE2SBPxw

Maybe this answer is cheating, but Smash Bros Ultimate has the best soundtrack of all time. It's got over 1000 tracks, including some of the most recognizable video games music of all time, and some amazing remixes.

Final Fantasy XIV

Besides many of the ones others have listed, I really enjoy a lot of the music from Katamari Damacy.

Some of my favourites:

• NieR Automata
• Katamari Damacy
• Chrono Trigger
• DOOM 2016
• Celeste
• Sonic Adventure 2

Uncharted for original soundtrack.

Burnout Paradise for licensed soundtrack.

Just of the top of my head:

• Doom (2016) - BFG Division - Mick Gordon
• Nier: Automata - 美シキ歌 (A beautiful Song) - Keigo Hoashi
• Super Meat Boy - The Battle of Lil Slugger - Danny Baranowsky
• Metal Gear Solid - Encounter - Takanari Ishiyama, Gigi Meroni, Kazuki Muraoka, Lee Jeon Myung and Hiroyuki Togo
• Hades - No Escape - Darren Korb

C418 - Sweden

Life is Strange soundtrack. That is, including all the licensed songs.
Was so good, got me into playing guitar.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

My personal favorite is Stains of Time

Castlevania, Metroid.

Everything else here 100% deserves the credit but I didn't see anyone mention Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is also amazing.

Tons of little songs I found myself idly humming for days/weeks after playing and a thoroughly epic main theme.

The finale of the game where time slows down and the music swells is one of my favorite gaming moments.

Doom 2016, hotline Miami, neon white

Bastion

The WWE SmackDown VS RAW series had some great soundtracks.

Especially SvR 2007

Nier automata

There are many I love but I gotta go with Evergrace. I know it's great because I've never played the game and am still always putting this one on.

Though if best means best in the context of the game then I'd probably have to go with Sim City 3000. The OST sounds fantastic and really captures the vibe of a city that is wires and plumbing sprouting into something living and breathing.

Final Fantasy ix and X.

Their vibes just fit both the games respected themes and narratives.

Besaid Island from x is one of my all time favourites. Roses of red from ix a close second.

Bastion and Transistor also come to mind from Super Giant Games.

Killer Instinct (original and 2013).

No Man's Sky

-Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Legend of the Eagle Bearer, The 300, Odyssey(Greek version).

-Assassin’s Creed Origins: Main theme, Return of the Medjay, Bayek of Siwa, The Shimmering Sands, The Battle of Krokodilopolis.

-Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Main theme, Shadow Walker, Out of the North.

-Battlefield 1: Nothing Is Written, Avanti Savoia, Hunted, Cape Helles, Zeebrugge Harbour, Sand and Dust, In the Name of the Tsar, Grace and Glory, Sword in Hand.

-Battlefield V: Legacy Theme, Under No Flag, Far From Home, Spitfires, Rotterdam In Ruins, Devestation, I Vow To Thee My Country

-Battlefield 4: Warsaw Theme, Stutter theme, Jin Jie's Revolution, A Theme For Kjell, Fishing in Baku.

-Battlefield Bad Company 2: The Storm, Snowy Mountains, Operation Aurora.

-Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Opening Titles, Extraction Point, Coup de Grace, Chain of Command, Esprit de Corps, Protocol.

for me, WH40k Mechanicus probably has the best. Every track is awsome and fits the setting perfectly.

Here is a playlist of the soundtrack if you want a listen.

I thought Mass Effect had a great soundtrack that really fit the game perfectly. Moody in parts and rousing in others.

Mass Effect 1 Soundtrack

Morrowind. It's iconic.

Valheim!

Tyrian 2000

My favorites:

• Command & Conquer (the first one)
• Hearts of Iron 2
• TES Morrowind
• Valheim

Risk of Rain 2 for GOAT Any supergiant game, but Transistor and Hades are a cut above

The Ghost of Tsushima soundtrack takes me back to the game every time

Jet Set Radio Future is up there for me. Even twenty years later it sounds like it came from the future.

Lots of good answers in this thread. Thank you for wording this in a way that allows me to post more than one answer, lol. I'll name a few I didn't see reading through here:

• Talos Principle
• System Shock remake
• Metroid Prime
• FF VI pixel remaster (all the pixel master OSTs are great, but VI got the most love)

Hear me out.

MechWarrier 2.

Senran kagura games tend to have really great soundtracks (PS4). Same goes for Blazblue and Guilty Gear series.

ehh fuck it, im gonna say its space funeral. It's a bunch of music lifted from the 70's BBC sound archives. Its clearly not the most expensive or masterfully produced soundtrack, but that's nowhere near the point. Its the dichotomy between the ugly visuals of scum vullage and the melancholic first track that persuaded me to stick around, and then it went in all sorts of different directions over the course of an hour long game.

that's super, dracula.

Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, FFVI and Xenogears top out the list for me. You can't beat them. If you want something a little off the beaten path, the soundtrack to Ruiner is pretty fucking rad.

Hunt: Showdown

Spotify

Youtube

Its insane how much the soundtrack makes this game. Probably the best use of music in a game outside of musicaly focused games. It's not just a few moments where the music is used effectively, its every single moment.

GTA 4. Dark, gloomy, realistic

Shout-out to Xenoblade Chronicles X. I really wish Nintendo would port it to Switch , since the only way to play it is on Wii U..

https://youtu.be/SuVRnUvdmz4

simcity 2000.

Katana Zero and Celeste both had great soundtracks. Persona 5’s soundtrack is amazing.

Octopath Traveler I and II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=349cnjiNqqI

Genshin Impact has an incredible soundtrack.

Some of my favorites include

Minecraft (nostalgia and calming slow paced)

Subnautica 1 and below zero (super calming to listen too and also fit the vibe really well)

No man's sky (music fits the atmosphere of the game really well)

Payday 2 (very good kinda electronic songs)

Superliminal (very good calming piano)

Boneworks and bonelab (these are absolutely phenomenal like electronic tracks, Michael Wyckoff fucking nailed the sound track for both games and both are perfect)

Red dead redemption 2 (the entire game is perfect and so is the sound track) (haven't played the first one)

But I swear it's always the tiny little indie games that hire some guy off of fiverr or something like make some masterpieces.

I'm going to go deep cut here with Outlaws (Lucasarts, 1997). If you don't have time to listen, imagine an Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western score, but with John Williams-like melodic leitmotifs. It was done really well, and lived on my various MP3 players for many years.

Portal 2. It's music told me more about aperture than I could discover with my eyes.

Payday 2 leads the industry with countless bangers and implements music in a way that keys you in on what phase you're currently in.

'Evil eye' 'Hot pursuit' 'Break the rules' 'Ode to greed' 'I will give you my all' 'The gauntlet'

Not to mention the Christmas track.

ULTRAKILL has a phenomenal OST. Fast paced and very breakcore for a stupidly fast FPS set in hell with crunchy PSX graphics, but still with these weighty almost sad moments of calm.

On the complete other end of the spectrum, Project Moon. They've done two turn based deck builders that force you to slow the fuck down and read, and are also a fan of using "actual" songs (made a group called Mili) for boss fights that are slow, melancholic, and Really Good. they've also done the main themes for Both Games but idk if they strictly count as 'OST'.

Also I know Persona gets all the love, but the mainline SMT series has some fucking bangers too, just more in the Club and/or Hell yeah tubular bells genre

Golden Sun. Despite some other masterpieces, I still maintain that the trilogy of games represent Motoi Sakuraba's magnum opus. Nothing else from the life of the GBA came anywhere close to even touching it, and even now tracks will randomly get stuck in my head, more than I can say for any other game soundtrack I've ever heard.

An older one, but Fahrenheit had such a great soundtrack.

God of War 2018. Was one of the only soundtracks I'd put on when not playing the game. Very beautiful, sometimes even haunting music.

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Though Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was a divisive game, its art direction and soundtrack are incredible. Oscar Araujo’s score combined with some great vistas and setpieces elevates the mediocre gameplay to actually make this game one of my favorites.

I also loved the songs from Death Stranding. Low Roar’s tracks fit the atmosphere of the game perfectly, and the few tracks from other artists really stand out in a nice contrast to Low Roar’s calmer feeling.

Maple story!

Katamari

• Ace Attorney: Gyakuten meets orchestra
• Ace Attorney: Turnabout Jazz Soul
• Any Castlevania soundtrack

Reznor did a great job with the soundtrack for quake 1.

Need for Speed II SE

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE730706C5F8C6F79

Skate 2. So many bangers.

I always liked the music written for the original Fable.

Not a single vote for dark souls 3 or bloodborne? barbaric!

Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Chronicles DE: Future Connected

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ the Golden Country

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

Commando for C64

Dustforce. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oOAeDYLSGYkmwjAJnvY8u?si=rGCcRlkHSLus7bAvRnD-Tg

Diablo 2. Easy

Outer Wilds

I’m very nostalgic for the Paper Mario games’ soundtracks, especially The Thousand Year Door’s.

Shin Megami Tensei IV - Tokyo

Planescape: Torment by Mark Morgan

I feel old reading the replies.

Rocket Jockey - Dick Dale Carmageddon - Fear Factory

God of War 2018. Was one of the only soundtracks I'd put on when not playing the game. Very beautiful, sometimes even haunting music.

Super Meat Boy

Sacrifice

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Baldurs Gate 2

Total Annihilation

The orchestral score is still my favourite game soundtrack after all these years, highly recommended.

Homeworld

Hollow knight. Especially the piano album.

Fez and Faster Than Light are two chill indie game soundtracks I really enjoy. Great to have on in the background while working

Return of the Obra Dinn

Destiny and Destiny 2 Hexic

Kenshi came to my mind at first, but due to the difficulties to actually hear the music in-game, I'll say Witcher 3 instead.