Close your eyes in the middle of a boss fight and listen to what is playing. The rise of African video game soundtracks means you may now hear a talking drum, a kora line or an amapiano log drum where there used to be a generic orchestral swell. For a long time, the sound of Africa in games came from outsiders, usually a few drums and a chant stuck over a safari level. That is changing, and the people changing it are Africans.
From Background Noise to Cultural Statement
Video game music has always done more than fill silence. It tells you when danger is close, when a village is safe, and when a story is about to hurt. When the music is borrowed from a culture the composer barely knows, players feel it, even if they cannot say why.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a good example. Actor Abubakar Salim created the game as a tribute to his late father, and its score combines orchestra, electronics, African traditional instrumentation and soaring vocals. The orchestral parts were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and in Vienna, with 120 musicians in total. Composer Nainita Desai said in an interview that they brought in as many diverse musicians as they could, including specialists who do not read standard notation. The grief and joy in that game come through the music before any dialogue does.
The African Gaming Industry Is Learning to Score Itself
The African gaming industry is still young, but it has stopped waiting for permission. Studios in Cape Town, Lagos, Nairobi, Yaoundé and Cairo are building games with African stories at the centre, and those games need African sound.
Some of that work is already reaching the top of the industry. Cape Town’s Pressure Cooker Studios recently scored projects for Riot Games, a result that Games Industry Africa described as capping over a decade of work to place the studio among the top tier of composers serving the global games industry. Its team works on a “made by many” approach, where several composers try different directions on each brief before the final pieces are shaped together. It is a collaborative method, and it echoes how a lot of African music is made, from a village drum circle to a Lagos studio session.
Individual composers are also making their way in. South African audio professionals have worked on indie titles such as Nyamakop’s Relooted, and freelance composers across the continent now list game scoring next to film and advertising work. The jobs are still few and often poorly paid, but they exist, and a few years ago they barely did.
Afrobeats in Gaming: The Sound That Crossed Over First
If one genre has shown what is possible, it is Afrobeats. Gaming and pop music have always fed each other, and Afrobeats in gaming has grown quickly as global publishers look for fresh sounds. Rema’s “Calm Down” was among the 41 tracks on the Just Dance 2024 song list. Ghanaian DJ and producer DJ Shagy saw his track “Bounce” selected for FIFA Heroes, the only African song on that game’s soundtrack. EA Sports FC 24 also featured four South African artists among its more than 100 acts.
Football games matter here. Millions of young Africans play them, and a track in a football game’s menu reaches an audience that radio and streaming sometimes miss. Still, a placement on a licensed playlist is not the same as being asked to compose, and the gap between those two is where the next fight for recognition will happen.
Scoring Africa, Not Just Sampling It
The most interesting change is who gets to write the music for stories set in Africa or inspired by it. Okayafrica noted that the Assassin’s Creed Shadows soundtrack by Thunderdrum and Tiggs Da Author fuses psych rock with East African rhythms, drawing on the East African roots of Tiggs Da Author. That matters because a musician who grew up with those rhythms hears them differently from someone who studied them from a distance.
Esports Africa News has also reported that developers are integrating traditional African instruments, Afrobeat melodies and indigenous chants to strengthen storytelling and world-building. The same report is honest about the obstacles: African musicians and producers still face barriers to recognition in the games business.
Nollywood and Gaming Share the Same Playbook
Nollywood and gaming have more in common than people assume. Both are built on stories told by a community that feels under-represented elsewhere, and both grew up with small budgets and big ideas. Nollywood has long relied on local composers, gospel and highlife influences, and recognisable theme songs that audiences hum for years.
Game studios can learn from that. A film like Agbara Nla can draw crowds because audiences trust that it speaks their language, and a game that sounds like home can earn the same trust. As more Nollywood talent explores interactive projects, expect composers to move between screens and consoles, and expect actors and musicians from both worlds to appear in the same credits.
How African Gaming Culture Is Taking Shape Around Music
African gaming culture is not only about what is made in Africa. It is also about how people play and what they share. Music spreads fastest when it is attached to something fun. A player in Nairobi hears a Naija-inspired beat in a racing game and finds the artist on streaming. A teenager in Accra remixes a soundtrack and posts it online. Live events help too. South Africa’s Stellenbosch City Orchestra staged the country’s first full video game concert, with a programme running from Zelda to Final Fantasy, and the conductor called it a long-held dream. Game music is now a respectable concert-hall idea in Africa, which would have sounded strange not long ago.
These moments feed a feeling that gaming belongs to Africans too, as players, makers and listeners.
What African Digital Entertainment Still Needs
African digital entertainment is growing across streaming, social video and mobile games, and soundtracks sit where all three meet. But enthusiasm will not pay the bills. Several things would help.
- First, fair contracts. Composers need proper credit, royalties and ownership of their work, not one-off fees that disappear.
- Second, training. Scoring for games is a different skill from writing a song. It needs adaptive music that changes with the player’s actions, and few African schools teach it.
- Third, investment. Studios, labels and funders should treat music as a core part of a game, with budget set aside from the start rather than at the end.
- Finally, connection. Musicians and developers rarely meet. Game jams, showcases and online communities that bring them together could produce the next breakout title.
The Last Level
The best African video game soundtracks do not ask players to understand every instrument or language. They ask them to feel something real, and they get there because the people making them know what the music means. As African musicians move from the edges of the credits roll to the heart of the design process, the continent’s games will sound less like a guess and more like home. Keep your headphones on, because the next great score may come from a studio down the road from you.
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