San Francisco Frontiers - Games music composer with ambition to define an artform

Deriviere's twin passions for music and gaming have driven a career creating music for massive-selling games including Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed", sometimes managing projects equal in scope to a film soundtrack.

"I think we need to get away from the reflex that we need to look at our 'big brother' cinema and say that we're going to do the same thing," Deriviere told AFP.

"If you compare what video games offer in artistic terms, it's vast compared to the cinema or theatre," he adds.

Deriviere's personal journey with games began very early in life.

"I've never left the house without a console since I was six years old," the 46-year-old says.

That passion has borne him up to creating music for one instalment in the massively popular "Assassin's Creed" series, or million-selling "A Plague Tale: Innocence", released by Asobo in 2019.

But his current project, "South of Midnight" by Canadian developer Compulsion Games is "my biggest creation yet," Deriviere says.

The tracks he plays back borrow their sound from the American South setting of the adventure game, set for release on April 8.

More than 100 recording sessions have gone into the work, split between Nashville in the US, London's legendary Abbey Road studios and the composer's own workspace in the Paris suburbs.

- 'Set off a revolution' -

Deriviere enjoyed "a musical childhood" growing up in Nice with his businessman father and choir-leader mother.

"When I was five years old, I was getting into U2 and Pink Floyd thanks to my dad, while my friends were listening to French songs," he remembered.

It was at the same time that he was first exposed to video games.

"The day someone first showed me a Commodore 64 moving a pixel around, it set off a revolution in my brain," Deriviere said.

He went as far as learning to code so that he could write music on the machine.

Deriviere struggled to find his niche, making false starts into several music and computing courses before securing a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music across the Atlantic in Boston.

A regular at the city's Symphonic Orchestra, he struck up a friendship with John Williams, writer of soundtracks to many Steven Spielberg movies and the "Star Wars" saga.

Deriviere says that the film legend became an "example" for him, teaching him to be patient.

Back in France, his first work on a game came with 2004's "Obscure", developed by a small studio.

Since then, he has worked on around 20 releases including the mega-blockbuster "Assassin's Creed" series.

"I got started in a tiny little room. A computer, two speakers and that was it," he remembered with a smile.

Now in demand from international developers, he employs six people in his 300-square-metre (3,200 square feet) studio).

- No substitute -

Percussion fan Deriviere clutches a pair of drumsticks as he wanders from the recording booths to the editing suites to keep up with multiple projects, some of which are still under wraps.

But in his spare minutes, he allows himself a few rounds of tennis game "Top Spin" in a room stuffed with consoles going back decades.

"I've always played, I've never stopped," the composer says.

For Deriviere, creating a piece of music has two stages: first writing a score, but then integrating it into the game to reflect the player's input.

The second task would normally be tackled by a game's music designer, rather than the composer.

But "I do both", Deriviere said. "Since I play video games, I understand this language and that's an advantage."

In "South of Midnight", Deriviere is attentive to the actions of protagonist Hazel, accompanied by a choir of girls' voices, as well as developing the tracks connected with the vast creatures that inhabit the game's universe.

He isn't a one-trick pony, having composed the music for 2023 horror movie "The Deep Dark" and for an episode of TV series "Star Wars: Visions", in another tie back to mentor Williams.

But linear film-making can't keep him away from the "unique experience" of games for long.

"It's up to us to bring new experiences to players," Deriviere said.

S.Hall--SFF