The Darkening's Composer Interviewed

James Hannigan: I've been composing professionally for around sixteen years. After starting out intending mostly to work in film and TV, I was offered a job quite quickly as an in-house composer at EA in 1995, where I then spent a few years before going freelance again. I'd already cut my teeth in games before that though, alongside composing quite a lot of library music and little bits and pieces for TV. I gained some useful experience while at EA, working on numerous EA Sports titles, games such as Privateer: The Darkening, and others, plus I got to grips with various techniques for creating so-called 'interactive music'.

Chris: As a freelancer, you came to prominence working on titles such as Conquest: Frontier Wars, Brute Force, and the appropriately titled FreeLancer. Could you share your experiences on these projects and how they influenced your career?

James Hannigan: A few years before those, I'd composed for the Origin title, Privateer: The Darkening while at EA, and one of the producers of that had a lot of involvement with the formation of Digital Anvil. Martin Galway, the audio director at the company, got in touch and we went from there. As a teenager, I'd heard a lot of Martin's music in various C64 games, so it was really great to be working with him — and we've been in touch ever since.

Secret Missions End in Success

On this day in the year 2655, Christopher Blair and Joseph Khumalo finally pinpointed the location of the Sivar dreadnought in the Vigrid System following a heated chase through the Kilrathi held quadrants of the Epsilon Sector. After an intense battle, fighters from the TCS Tiger's Claw were successful in destroying the enemy superweapon. To atone for this failure, the Grand Admiral of the Kilrathi fleet, Crown Prince Gilkarg nar Kiranka, was executed. His second son, Prince Thrakhath, then succeeded the admiral as second in line to the Kilrathi throne.