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Wataru Hokoyama has been composing and orchestrating scores for TV shows, films, and video games for decades. Thanks to the music he created for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, alongside his mentor of six years, Mark Mothersbaugh, he\u2019s now an official American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers awards winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because Hokoyama has received the Video Game Score of the Year award for Rift Apart by way of the 2022 ASCAP Screen Music Awards. Of course, Mothersbaugh helped create the score as well, but he\u2019s not with ASCAP, so the award, on paper, goes to Hokoyama alone. In a new interview with Game Informer<\/em>, though, the composer, who also has credits on Thor: Ragnarok<\/em>, Resident Evil 5, Knack, Halo Wars 2 and Halo 2: Anniversary, and more, said winning this award wouldn\u2019t have been possible without Mothersbaugh. That\u2019s because Mothersbaugh is the reason Hokoyama got the opportunity to score Rift Apart in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked on it for about a year and a half, but I want to mention something that\u2019s super important before I talk about anything else [and that] is that this project, actually, originally came to me by my mentor, Mark Mothersbaugh,\u201d says Hokoyama. \u201cI have been working with Mark for the last several years \u2013 at least six \u2013 and he\u2019s been my mentor so when Sony offered [Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart] to Mark, he brought me on board as a co-writer, which is extremely big and kind of him because it is such a huge title. He brought me on board as a co-writer to share credit with me and to work with me on this, which was an extreme honor. I just want to show my appreciation for Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n Hokoyama and Mothersbaugh worked together on 2017\u2019s Thor: Ragnarok<\/em>, but obviously, they had the score finished before then. He says in 2016, shortly after finishing up on Ragnarok<\/em>, the Rift Apart opportunity landed on their plate. In Hokoyama\u2019s heart, today\u2019s award goes to both of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019m getting all these awards and attention now, compared to 10 years ago, because I\u2019m more mature, I don\u2019t get ungrounded or jump off the chair or get a big head or the wrong idea about myself,\u201d Hokoyama says. \u201cI feel very calm and just this sense of, \u2018wow, so grateful that the world actually sees this as a special soundtrack that we\u2019ve worked on for so long.\u2019 I just feel calmly grateful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout the interview, Hokoyama stressed how thankful he was to work with Sony. He says they gave him, Mothersbaugh, and the rest of the music team full creative freedom to create the best score possible for Rift Apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe team at Sony is really awesome,\u201d Hokoyama says. \u201cThey\u2019re super easy to work with and very, very collaborative and creative. And they just supported us in any level possible. I think it made the whole creative team really fun, and it allowed us to kind of do wilder things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hokoyama says that creative freedom remained throughout the entire process, even as pressure and\u00a0hype\u00a0around Rift Apart, which was one of the first major first-party exclusives for the PlayStation 5 that launched less than a year prior, continued to build. When asked about the pressure of composing a score for such a big title, Hokoyama says it felt less like pressure and more like excitement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI knew the name Ratchet & Clank because I used to play it, and I was so into it,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I heard the name, I was like, \u2018Oh my goodness!\u2019 Of course, I did feel the pressure, but we were all excited. Rather than pressure, it was like, \u2018Oh my god, we get to do this big title.\u2019 They just basically said, \u2018Hey, I want you guys to be very creative and any idea that comes to your mind, we\u2019d love to hear it.\u2019 That allowed us to extend our creativity and I really believe that it was a whole team effort\u2026that led to this score.\u201d<\/p>\n Ratchet & Clank is one of PlayStation\u2019s longest-running franchises, and when asked how the score of Rift Apart played into that legacy, Hokoyama explained that because the last new entry in the franchise was 2013\u2019s Into The Nexus<\/a> (since 2016\u2019s Ratchet & Clank<\/a> was essentially a remake with an existing score written for it), he and Mothersbaugh were able to create a new sound for the series. He said Sony specifically encouraged them to create something new. They wanted to hear what would come out of us, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ratchet-clank-rift-apart-composer-wataru-hokoyama-on-winning-awards-writing-video-game-music-and-more-1.jpg\")
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Composer Wataru Hokoyama <\/p>\n