Writing Eden Rewritten

In April of 2025, I was browsing the merch area of the Video Game Music Convention, looking for a birthday present for my brother. I was specifically on the hunt for anything BioShock, since that’s his favorite franchise. Materia Music had a booth there, and when they mentioned they didn’t have a BioShock album but that it was something fans were hungry for, I said – without pause – “I’ll write it.”

This album is dedicated to my brother, who introduced me to BioShock and reminds me that who we become is a choice we get to make. 

The Core Creative Problem: Reverence vs Reinvention

Schyman’s score for BioShock is iconic and beloved, with a very recognizable identity. The problem I was up against was how to meaningfully reimagine something gamers already love without changing it so much that I lost what fans love about it in the first place. 

I started by choosing tracks I felt were iconic to each game in the franchise. As a classically trained composer, some of those tracks immediately jumped out to me as prime candidates for full orchestral reimaginings. But I also love using music and audio to tell stories, and a few tracks stood out as key storytelling devices – a chance to bring in sound design and worldbuilding elements instead. 

That split became the backbone of the album: some pieces earned scale, others earned atmosphere. 

Orchestral

Before Materia and I had even finished hammering out the details, I already knew which track I was going to start with: Cohen's Masterpiece. It was begging to be developed into a full orchestral piece featuring an organ. Cohen is over the top, and I wanted to create something that truly reflected his character.

The orchestra-plus-organ combination felt like a perfect fit for Welcome to Rapture as well. I wanted momentum and grandeur, and even though I had to slow the track down for the organ, it still maintained the momentum appropriate for the beginning of a harrowing journey. As the track progresses and the city gets closer, revealing itself to us, the orchestra grows and blooms to its full size.

Dancers on a String is a waltz, and I'm a sucker for a grand waltz. This piece was a lot of fun to work on and came together naturally — almost as if the melody was meant to be realized on this scale. To extend the piece, I wrote a B and C section, like you'd find in more traditional classical waltzes. Those sections are new melodies I composed to complement the original.

I wanted Pairbond to feel like a duet between Delta and Eleanor — delicate and tender, as I imagined Delta would be in the ending where a player chooses to save all the Little Sisters and spare the three major characters. I also wanted it to feel like the two were distanced from each other, with an almost memory-like quality to the bond. Woodwinds and celeste felt like the right instruments for that effect. To bring Delta into the duet, I used cello and french horn in a very restrained way — instruments that are powerful but also capable of great tenderness, which felt appropriate for representing Delta in the compassionate branch of the storyline.

AD was a challenging piece to work through, and I ended up taking it in a more contemporary classical direction. Infinite feels much more chaotic to me, and I wanted to lean into that. There are so many moving pieces Booker has to manage while also untangling the mess of his memories and his past. I broke the piece into segments and had them interrupt and weave around each other, jumping from one instrument to the next. The goal was to create a musical sense of conflict and confusion similar to what Booker experiences as he tries to understand his past.

There was no question in my mind that Beyond the Sea would open the album. Its connection to the franchise is too iconic to ignore, and I wanted to create an epic cover in the spirit of something you'd hear in a trailer. This track took me the longest to finish. Making it feel dark and epic was more of a challenge than I anticipated — there were so many options in front of me, and it felt like I tried all of them before finally landing on the version that made the album. The lesson from this one: you can't be afraid to throw everything at the wall and walk away from what doesn't stick.

Audio as World Builder

As an audio professional in games, immersion is always at the forefront of my mind. I believe audio has a fundamental role in immersion and worldbuilding, and I approached a few tracks on Eden Rewritten with that in mind.

God Only Knows plays near the beginning of what's about to be a very dark and challenging journey. Booker has no idea what's going on, but he can tell something is off. I wanted the listener to feel like they were there on the airship, the gravity of what's coming starting to sink in. I wanted the melody to feel distant — like it's slightly stuck in your head as you explore Columbia deeper, wondering what #77 refers to.

Memory plays a role in both the original BioShock and Infinite, and I chose Ocean on His Shoulders to sonically play with that theme. The opening variation of the melody is fragile, like a surface memory that isn't fully fixed. As pressure builds on top of the melody, a sense of inevitability starts to fall into place — the memories Jack thought were real begin to fall apart, and the piano loses its inner voicing and harmonic depth. Then the attack of the piano's keys fades as something different starts to creep in: a reversed version of the melody begins to take shape, but it never fully surfaces or resolves. The truth about Jack's past is still yet to be discovered.

For Eleanor's Lullaby, I wanted to explore what could happen to the music if the player walks the darker branches of the storyline. Bringing it into a minor key was the first step, but I wanted it to feel like a corruption. At the beginning, she still holds the potential for light or darkness — so as the track continues, layers of corrupted strings seep in, taking over what was originally a melody of light and hope.

The final track on the album is Will the Circle Be Unbroken. The very first decision I made on this one was that the circle would be broken, with Elizabeth's power as the catalyst. What she reveals with that tear takes us back to the beginning — simultaneously breaking and continuing the circle.

Listening Tip

Immersion can be enhanced for certain tracks — God Only Knows and Eleanor's Lullaby especially — with headphones, though I personally find immersion for any gaming or listening experience is enhanced through headphones in general. And while you're listening, see if you can find the hidden message in Beyond the Sea.

Thank you to Materia Collective for taking on this passion project and helping me create something special for my brother and the BioShock fandom. I hope I've done the series justice and that you all enjoy the listening experience.

You can listen to the album on any of the platforms listed here