Age of Empires
Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. The first title of the series was "Age of Empires", released in 1997. Seven titles and three spin-offs have been released.
Age of Empires
Stephen Rippy has been the series' music director since the first game. He has had occasional help from his brother, David Rippy, as well as Kevin McMullan. He created the original music in "Age of Empires" with sounds of instruments from the periods in the game. These sounds came from actual instruments, and their digital samples. The tunes were the result of extensive research on the cultures, styles, and instruments used. Rippy said that sound development on "The Age of Kings" was easy, since there was knowledge of the instruments used in the Middle Ages. Therefore, they were able to reproduce the tunes for the soundtrack of the game. In "Age of Mythology", an orchestral instrumentation was used, instead. According to McMullan, the team also collected large numbers of audio recordings from zoos, and created "a massive sound library of [their] own material." The music of "Age of Empires III" was similar to "The Age of Kings", in which the team used more historical instruments; Rippy noted the team used instruments such as "bagpipes and field drums" to give it a realistic feel.