Video games gave synthwave three things: a name, a picture and an audience. The name "outrun" comes from Sega's 1986 arcade racer Out Run; the picture, a coast road at sunset, comes from the same game; and the audience arrived through indie hits such as Hotline Miami (2012) and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (2013). The Frekvenci archive also lists dozens of game soundtracks, which is the part of the story only a catalogue can show.
Arcade roots
The music that synthwave remembers was often made on chips with a handful of voices, for a machine that wanted to catch your attention in a loud room. That produced melodies with short, bright, repeating phrases, bass lines that moved like a metronome, and arpeggios, which are the sound most listeners mean when they say "it sounds like a racing game". Home consoles in the 1980s and early 1990s kept the habit. Power Glove, the Australian duo who scored Blood Dragon, named Ecco the Dolphin and the "Dire Dire Docks" level of Super Mario 64 among their game influences when they spoke to Gamereactor, and said they listen to a lot of Vangelis and prog rock; John Carpenter and Terminator-style sounds fed the Blood Dragon work itself.[4] Games and film drew on the same pool, which the companion page on Synthwave and 1980s film scores: Carpenter, Vangelis and the sound of the screen follows from the film side.
Out Run (1986)
Sega's Out Run, designed by Yu Suzuki, reached arcades in Japan in September 1986, North America in November and Europe in December, according to Wikipedia.[1] Its score was written by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, who had earlier scored Hang-On, and the player chooses one of three tunes on a car radio: "Passing Breeze", "Splash Wave" or "Magical Sound Shower".[1] Wikipedia describes the music as similar to Latin and Caribbean styles, and says Kawaguchi cites the Latin jazz musician Naoya Matsuoka as an influence.[1] So the link to synthwave is mood and picture, not a shared sound. If you want the outrun strand as it is tagged today, the Outrun music: the racing-game sound of synthwave and the Retrowave: the name, the sound and where it overlaps synthwave show how it blurs into its neighbours.
Wikipedia says synthwave is also called "outrun" music, taking its name from the game and its 1980s look, and notes that Kavinsky titled his 2013 debut album OutRun.[1] How tight the connection is remains a matter of dispute: sources disagree on whether outrun is a synonym for synthwave or a driving-themed strand, and our guide to Outrun music: the racing-game sound of synthwave covers that. In the archive the outrun tag is small, with 120 listed releases, first dated 2011.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 1 |
| 2012 | 4 |
| 2013 | 2 |
| 2014 | 6 |
| 2015 | 3 |
| 2016 | 11 |
| 2017 | 9 |
| 2018 | 7 |
| 2019 | 8 |
| 2020 | 10 |
| 2021 | 13 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2023 | 5 |
| 2024 | 9 |
| 2025 | 12 |
Hotline Miami and the 2012 wave
Hotline Miami reached Steam on 23 October 2012, from the developer Dennaton Games and the publisher Devolver Digital. Wikipedia reports that the team wanted a soundtrack that felt like a film score rather than a game score, and that after a licensing attempt failed they searched Bandcamp for free-download tracks, listening, according to one developer, to up to two thousand.[2] The final soundtrack runs to 22 tracks across electronic, techno, vaporwave and synthwave styles, and named artists include M.O.O.N., Scattle, Coconuts, Sun Araw and Perturbator, whose "Miami Disco" is on the list.[2] Scattle, the article says, contacted the developers after reading their blog and was asked to compose new music in the tracker Renoise.[2]
The 22-track mix reached vinyl in 2016: Laced Records pressed a limited run of 5,000 copies, funded by a Kickstarter that raised over $75,000.[2] A word of caution: the claim that Hotline Miami "introduced" gamers to synthwave comes from blogs and retrospectives, and we treat it as one milestone among several, not the cause. Our archive agrees that something happened around then: the synthwave line in the release data starts to climb steeply in 2012 and 2013, but film, YouTube channels and Bandcamp were all in play.
Perturbator is the archive's clearest link. Its listing has 14 releases from 2012 to 2025, including I Am the Night (2012) and Dangerous Days (2014), both on Blood Music. The artist page lists every release with its label.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Blood Dragon, a standalone spin-off of Far Cry 3, arrived in spring 2013 as an 80s action-movie parody scored by Power Glove. Game Informer's preview said the soundtrack had 25 original tracks, was streaming on the duo's SoundCloud page and would be on iTunes from 1 May.[3] In an interview dated 1 May 2013, the duo said their early MySpace releases were "a little bit jokey, tongue-in-cheek", that Ubisoft first emailed because it wanted to use one of their songs, and that the studio had been their home "for the past year" while they built the score from a mix of hardware and software synths.[4] In March 2014 FACT reported that Invada Records, run by Portishead's Geoff Barrow, would issue the score as a double LP in neon pink, limited to 1,000 copies, for Record Store Day on 19 April.[5]
The archive carries a later Power Glove game record, not the 2013 score: Trials of the Blood Dragon (Original Game Soundtrack), listed in 2016 on Ubisoft Music, a different game from the 2013 one. In all, 7 Power Glove releases are listed, from an EP in 2008 to a 2021 album.
Game soundtracks in the archive
Here is what only a catalogue shows. Under the synthwave family's tags we list a long run of original soundtracks for games, from small indie titles to large studio releases. A short selection, in order of year:
- 2014: a run of soundtracks by Spacious Sweep named for games, including *F-Zero*, *Super Soccer* and *Chambers of Shaolin* (see Synthwave in 2014: the year in the archive for the year; two of the six are tagged spacesynth, a branch the Spacesynth: the cosmic, Italian-rooted corner of synthwave covers).
- 2015: Magic Sword's *Hotline Miami 2* tribute, tagged retrowave, from the year of the sequel.
- 2016: Neon Drive, PinOut, Stellar Interface and the Trials of the Blood Dragon soundtrack.
- 2017: Beat Cop, Strafe, Tokyo 42, Aero Effect, Trackless by Makeup and Vanity Set, and Jack B. Nimble.
- 2019: Katana ZERO by Bill Kiley, Rage Road, Overpass and Black Paradox.
- 2020 onwards: Paradise Killer, Art of Rally, Maximum Action, Sense, and later The Finals (2024, with more seasonal volumes through 2026) and Arc Raiders (2025), the last two on the Music Super Circus label.
Two things stand out. First, the mid-2010s cluster: the earliest titles here are mostly from 2014 to 2017, years in which indie games with neon looks were common, and the archive's total yearly releases grew fast (see Synthwave in 2016: the year in the archive and Synthwave in 2017: the year in the archive). Second, the later entries come from larger studios, which suggests the sound has moved from indie signature to mainstream production palette. We cannot prove that from release data, so take it as an observation. Bandcamp Daily's piece on Katana ZERO notes that its composers drew on 1980s house, electro and synth-pop, plus Gary Numan and Vangelis, which shows how far a "synthwave" game score can reach beyond the genre's usual sources.[6]
Where games and film cross over
The two streams in this genre's history meet often. The Swedish producer Lost Years told Vehlinggo in 2015 that his track "West Side Lane" was meant for Hotline Miami 2 but ended up in Kung Fury, a story that shows how the same small pool of artists supplies both screens.[7] Our companion page on Synthwave and 1980s film scores: Carpenter, Vangelis and the sound of the screen covers the film side. Katana ZERO's composers, Bill Kiley and LudoWic, described their score to Bandcamp as drawing on 1980s house, electro and synth-pop, plus Gary Numan and Vangelis, and Bandcamp's headline calls the result synthwave gone neo-noir.[6]
There is also a difference of timing. Arcade music of the 1980s was background for a few minutes of play. A modern indie score is released as an album and judged as one: the Invada vinyl of Blood Dragon and the Laced Records vinyl of Hotline Miami are both examples of game music treated as a record.[5][2]
Making music for games
The sources in this article describe three working methods. Scattle composed for Hotline Miami in a tracker program after contacting the team.[2] Power Glove combined hardware and software synths and, in their words, were "at our best" when the two worked together.[4] And the Hotline Miami designers built their soundtrack by searching a download site, which is how a small unknown scene ended up with a large audience.[2]
A game score has constraints that an album does not. It has to loop. It has to stay interesting for hours without drawing attention away from the player. And it often has to change when the player does: Wikipedia notes that in Hotline Miami the music drops away and is replaced by ambience when a level ends.[2] The result is a style of synthwave that favours loops, steady pulses and clear sections, which is useful to know when you listen to the soundtrack records in the list below.
A short route through the game scores
For a single sitting, the list below goes from the genre's first game-sparked wave to its newest studio work. The labels are from the archive; the reasons are ours.
| Year | Record | Label | Why it is on the route | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | I Am the Night | Blood Music | The year of Hotline Miami, from a named artist on its soundtrack | |
| 2016 | [[release:pengus-neon-drive-game-soundtrack | Pengus, Neon Drive]] | Retrowave Touch Records | An arcade-style score that leans on the neon look the genre made familiar |
| 2017 | [[release:amos-roddy-strafe-original-soundtrack | Amos Roddy, Strafe]] | Laced Records | The label that pressed the Hotline Miami vinyl also issued this score |
| 2019 | [[release:bill-kiley-katana-zero-original-soundtrack | Bill Kiley, Katana ZERO]] | Wic Recordings | The neo-noir end, with house and electro influences the composers name[6] |
| 2020 | [[release:epoch-paradise-killer-original-soundtrack | Epoch, Paradise Killer]] | Kaizen Game Works | A large soundtrack from a stylised indie game |
| 2025 | [[release:patrik-andren-arc-raiders-original-video-game-soundtrack | Patrik Andren, Arc Raiders]] | Music Super Circus | A studio shooter, a long way from a bedroom Bandcamp page |
If the heavy end appeals, go on to What is darksynth? The heavy, horror-lit side of synthwave and If you like Perturbator: artists to try next. If you like the Australian duo's approach, If you like Power Glove: artists to try next lists the other acts in the archive that sit near them. For the label side of this story, see Blood Music: label profile and where to start and the Synthwave labels worth knowing, and which are still active. The companion list Synthwave for game developers: licences, sources and credits is built for playing rather than reading, and A short history of synthwave, from French blogs to the charts and How synthwave went mainstream: Drive, Stranger Things and Blinding Lights, against the release numbers place the games among the film and TV moments.
Records to start with
Games and their soundtracks, spread across the decade.
- Perturbator · 2012 · Blood Music · LPPerturbator's 2012 album on Blood Music, from the year of Hotline Miami.
- Perturbator · 2014 · Blood Music · LPThe 2014 follow-up, a common starting point for the darker side.
- Power Glove · 2016 · Ubisoft Music · LPThe 2016 Power Glove game soundtrack on Ubisoft Music.
- Mitch Murder · 2016 · self-released · LPA 2016 soundtrack album by Mitch Murder.
- Pengus · 2016 · Retrowave Touch Records · LPA 2016 soundtrack for the game Neon Drive.
- Amos Roddy · 2017 · Laced Records · LPA 2017 soundtrack for the game Strafe.
- Makeup and Vanity Set · 2017 · yk Records · LPA 2017 game soundtrack by Makeup and Vanity Set.
- Epoch · 2020 · Kaizen Game Works · LPA 2020 soundtrack for Paradise Killer.
- Hunter J Pierce · 2020 · Retrowave Touch Records · LPA 2020 soundtrack for Maximum Action.
- Patrik Andrén · 2025 · Music Super Circus · LPA 2025 soundtrack for Arc Raiders.
Questions people ask about synthwave and games
Is the Hotline Miami soundtrack synthwave?
Partly. Wikipedia describes its 22 tracks as covering electronic, techno, vaporwave and synthwave styles, so it is a mixed soundtrack rather than a synthwave album.[2] The synthwave names on it are the ones most players remember, and that is a large part of why the game is quoted in this genre's history.
Is synthwave the same as chiptune?
No. Chiptune is made on the sound chips or emulated chips of old consoles and computers, with a few simple voices. Synthwave imitates the mood of that decade with modern synths and drum machines, which is why a racing-game arpeggio can appear in both.
Can I use synthwave in my own game or stream?
Check the licence on each track. Frekvenci's radio shows the Creative Commons licence for every track it plays, and the pages Free synthwave for videos and streams: the Creative Commons way and Synthwave for YouTube and Twitch: what you can actually use explain what the common licences allow and how to credit the artist.
Where to listen
For racing-game synth, the Night Drive station (92.0 FM) is the closest Frekvenci station; for the heavier Hotline Miami side, try the Dark station (94.6 FM). To find more game soundtracks, browse all synthwave releases and search for "OST" or "soundtrack" in the titles.
Sources
- Out Run (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- Hotline Miami (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- The Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Soundtrack Fits Like A Glove · Mike Futter, Game Informer, 24 Apr 2013
- The Music of Blood Dragon, interview with Power Glove · Gillen McAllister, Gamereactor, 1 May 2013
- Invada to release Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon soundtrack for Record Store Day · FACT Magazine, 13 Mar 2014
- On the Katana ZERO Score, Synthwave Goes Neo-Noir · Shaun Brady, Bandcamp Daily, 13 May 2019
- A Quick Q&A with 80s Retrosynther Lost Years · Aaron Vehling, Vehlinggo, 1 Nov 2015