Sony, the company that owns PlayStation, announced an event where the composer of The Ghost of Yōtei and the artists that created it would be live to talk about the music of the game. Among other words, the reactions to the event were incredible; they could be interpreted as showing the gaming community’s FEELINGS.
A “Soundtrack Listening Party” event was the main thing that came out of the event where the developers would go into detail about the music of their soon-to-be-released game Ghost of Yōtei. The tweet showed the event was to start a few minutes after the tweet, which would allow the players to hear what the game’s audio is made of. However, the world did not respond with a universal wave of music lovers, but completely the opposite way.
The tweet was pretty ordinary, just stating the live stream and giving a link to it. But the discussion in the comments section was like a total mess. Just in a few moments, people were talking about anything and everything except the score. A user by the name of Stewart Lawrence said, “Get this trash out of my face,” and another gamer referred to it as “woke slop” without even talking about the music???
Furthermore, there was that strange thread about the disputes of whether video games represented good looking women? One user called Luffygearmonger is saying “Sorry I enjoy attractive women in video games” which prompted this back-and-forth where one person told him to “stay gay” and another said “get help.” The question is, what does all this have to do with a soundtrack listening party? The conversation was completely off-topic, which, to be honest, is a typical occurrence on gaming Twitter.
On the other side, some players were adamant to discuss the game. One player stated “Soundtracks always hit differently live” which in fact underscores the point of validity of the celebrity and producer’s commentaries during the game music performance at the same time. Nevertheless, those comments got buried under all the other stuff.
But what was even more bizarre was that so many people referred to sales figures. I mean, the number of comments asking for an explanation as to why PlayStation was hiding the sales numbers for Ghost of Yōtei was huge. One user Kenken324561 said: “anything but drop the sale number like GOT after 3 days huh” while another, Leonel_Gun, accused them without hesitation of keeping the sales data secret. But… was this a soundtrack event? About music? Not sales figures?
Repeatedly there were also comments about “Antifa” and the context was completely lost. JohnnyBeeGoodD said “Erika the antifa terrorist” and others were just echoing him. Maybe the reaction was just to the title of the game and then the connection was lost to whatever buzzwords they had heard elsewhere.
The thing that is really interesting, however, is that Ghost of Yōtei seems to be taking a similar path as other major PlayStation exclusives when it comes to heavy investment in the soundtrack presentation. The Last of Us and Tsushima had phenomenal scores that became almost as iconic as the games themselves. So, hosting a dedicated listening party with the creators could indeed be pretty great for the gamers who love the music.
But you would not find that out from reading the replies. The discussion got so astray that it turned into debates about everything from trophy systems to customer service to… political assassination?? GeraldBaldZ asked if these were “those political assassination celebrating devs” which like, where on earth did that come from?
The entire situation kind of reflects how gaming discussions online have become this odd mess where people just project whatever they’re already upset about onto new announcements. A simple soundtrack livestream announcement turned into this battleground for every random grievance people had with PlayStation, the developers, or just gaming culture in general.
The actual music meanwhile is probably quite good? Game soundtracks have been receiving more recognition recently, with composers almost being as famous as the games themselves. Having the developers explain their creative process could create a deeper appreciation for the role that music plays in the overall gaming experience. But one would find it very difficult to locate someone who is actually discussing that in the comments.
The livestream itself, however, might have been really engaging for those who are interested in game development and music composition. Listening to the creators talk about their inspiration and technical choices directly can provide a lot of context to the final product. But, going by the Twitter reaction, one would think that PlayStation had announced something entirely different.
It is quite striking how a simple announcement can blow up like this. One moment it’s “hey look at this great music event” and the next it’s people arguing about… everything but music. Gaming Twitter keeps proving it can take things to unexpected places.
Ultimately, Ghost of Yōtei is likely going to have a good soundtrack no matter what the opinion on Twitter is. Big PlayStation exclusives almost always deliver when it comes to sound quality, and the holding of a listening party indicates that the developers are confident about their product. Whether players choose to attend or not, the music will still be there when the game is released.
The whole situation is just another day in gaming social media – where sensible discussions are not possible and every announcement becomes a platform for unrelated arguments. But the music probably sounds good, at least.
