The Best Video Game Theme Songs

Ten melodies you can hum perfectly and could not name the composer of under oath.

Entries
10
Category
Games
Updated
  1. A huge sticky ball rolling down a city street covered in cows, umbrellas, bicycles and houses.

    10. Katamari Damacy: Katamari on the Rocks

    Yu Miyake · 2004

    A brassy, lounge-pop anthem for a game about rolling a sticky ball over cows, sumo wrestlers and eventually whole islands, so the King of All Cosmos can replace the stars. It is the most joyful thing on this list and the soundtrack is a cult import.

  2. A shotgun leaning against a metal door in a red-lit sci-fi corridor, a stack of guitar amplifiers in the background.

    09. Doom: At Doom's Gate

    Bobby Prince · 1993

    The E1M1 theme: a chugging MIDI guitar riff that plays as you step out of the first hallway. John Romero told Prince to write in metal and techno styles, and many tracks were directly inspired by bands like Pantera. Thrash metal, played on a sound card.

  3. A horned iron helmet on a snowy mountain ridge, a dragon's wing shadow sweeping across the snow.

    08. Skyrim: Dragonborn

    Jeremy Soule · 2011

    Todd Howard wanted the series theme sung by a choir of barbarians. Soule recorded a 30-person choir singing in the game's invented dragon language and layered three takes into the sound of 90. Nobody in that room knew what they were saying. It works.

  4. A checkered dirt loop-the-loop over palm trees and waterfalls, golden rings floating along the track.

    07. Sonic the Hedgehog: Green Hill Zone

    Masato Nakamura · 1991

    Sega hired Nakamura, bassist of the hugely popular J-pop band Dreams Come True, to score the first Sonic, and the opening stage got a bouncy pop single disguised as level music. It is still the first thing Sega plays when it wants your money. Correct strategy.

  5. A slice of frosted cake on a plate in a sterile white test chamber with two round glowing doorways on the walls.

    06. Portal: Still Alive

    Jonathan Coulton · 2007

    The end credits song, sung by Ellen McLain as the homicidal AI who spent the game trying to kill you, now cheerfully reporting that she is fine. Coulton, a former software coder turned internet songwriter, wrote it. The cake was not real. The song was.

  6. A single black feather drifting down past a towering industrial reactor at night.

    05. Final Fantasy VII: One-Winged Angel

    Nobuo Uematsu · 1997

    The final boss theme, with a full choir singing Latin lifted from the medieval Carmina Burana poems, crammed onto a 1997 PlayStation. Uematsu's most famous piece now closes symphony concerts worldwide. Few orchestras planned on this, but here they are.

  7. A giant ringworld arching across a starry sky above a green alpine valley.

    04. Halo: Main Theme

    Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori · 2001

    Monks chanting, then strings, then guitars. O'Donnell jotted the melody down in his car for the E3 2000 demo and it was recorded and shipped the same night. Before games he co-wrote the music for a Flintstones vitamins ad, so his range is total.

  8. Falling stacked blocks forming a skyline in front of onion-domed towers under snow.

    03. Tetris: Korobeiniki

    Hirokazu Tanaka · 1989

    A 19th-century Russian folk song about a peddler, set to a Nekrasov poem, arranged in chiptune for the Game Boy and bundled with millions of handhelds. It now plays in most people's heads whenever they pack a car trunk. A peddler who finally made the sale.

  9. A wooden sword planted in green pixel grass at the mouth of a dark cave, three triangles of light overhead.

    02. The Legend of Zelda: Overworld Theme

    Koji Kondo · 1986

    Kondo planned to open the game with Ravel's Boléro, then learned in late 1985 it was still under copyright in Japan. He wrote a replacement in a single day, and it has opened most Zelda games since. The best thing a rights department ever did for anyone.

  10. A floating brick block, a green pipe and a gold coin mid-air over a blue sky.

    01. Super Mario Bros.: Overworld Theme

    Koji Kondo · 1985

    Kondo, Nintendo's first dedicated composer, wrote it to feel like running and jumping, and it does. In 2023 it became the first piece of video game music added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Admitted alongside Sinatra, on merit.

Honorable mentions

  • An empty shopping bag sitting on a bright white digital storefront floor beside a single spinning disc.

    Wii Shop Channel Theme

    Kazumi Totaka · 2006

    Bossa nova written to accompany browsing a store menu, which the internet turned into countless remixes. The shop closed in January 2019 and people still hum it in checkout lines. The only elevator music anyone has ever missed.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A 45 rpm record with a bite taken out of it, lying on a dark arcade floor beside spilled quarters.

    Pac-Man Fever

    Buckner & Garcia · 1982

    Not a theme song, but a novelty single about playing Pac-Man, with chomping sound effects, that reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. A whole album of songs about other arcade games followed. It is a song about a game, and that is all it is.

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