Upcoming sci-fi survival game Blind Descent just added some serious firepower to its soundtrack, with veteran composers Jack Wall and Jim Lordeman joining the project alongside previously announced electronic producer Corvad.
And if Jack Wall's name sounds familiar, there's a good reason for that. He helped define the musical identity of the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, combining electronic soundscapes with cinematic orchestration to create some of the most recognizable sci-fi music in gaming. He's also spent years working on the Call of Duty: Black Ops series.
Lordeman has similarly worked extensively alongside Wall on the Black Ops games, including providing additional score for Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7. So yes, Mars is about to sound considerably more expensive.
Blind Descent's New Steam Playtest Is Live
The soundtrack announcement arrives alongside a new Blind Descent playtest, which players can request access to now through Steam.
This isn't simply another round of bug hunting, either. Developer Pokuch has significantly reworked the game's opening, adding more emphasis on exploration and environmental storytelling alongside new creatures, progression systems, hazards, and survival mechanics. One of the biggest changes involves your home base.
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Rather than constructing an entire settlement from scratch, players now discover an abandoned scientific facility buried beneath the Martian surface. Unfortunately, because this is a survival game and nothing nice is ever allowed to happen, the facility is also infested with plague. It becomes the central hub for progression as you explore the underground ecosystem surrounding it.
Pokuch has also redesigned or remodeled almost every existing alien creature, while updating their behaviors to make encounters less predictable. Alien flora has received similar treatment, with new environmental interactions designed around observing potentially dangerous organisms before deciding whether poking them is an excellent scientific discovery or an extremely efficient way to die.
What Is Blind Descent?
Blind Descent is an open-world survival game set deep beneath the surface of Mars, playable solo or in four-player co-op.
Players are sent underground to discover what happened to a missing expedition, only to find an enormous living ecosystem where survival increasingly depends on adapting to the environment rather than simply conquering it. Crafting, base progression, exploration, and even biological mutation all play a role.
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That premise makes Wall an especially fitting addition. Few game composers are as closely associated with exploring strange alien worlds, and hearing some of that Mass Effect-style atmospheric pedigree applied to a hostile subterranean Mars sounds like a pretty natural fit.
Blind Descent does not currently have a release date, although Pokuch plans to launch the game through Steam Early Access and says additional open playtests will take place before then. For now, you can request access to the latest Steam playtest and discover exactly how many horrible things Mars has apparently been hiding underneath all that red dirt.
