Game Changers: Video Game Grammy Nominees

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hi!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips, and in February of this year I was thrilled to win the GRAMMY® Award for my musical score for Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord!  My Wizardry score won in the category of Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media.  Every year, the Society of Composers & Lyricists (in collaboration with Electronic Arts and White Bear PR) organizes an online seminar entitled GAME CHANGERS.  The seminar features all of the nominees in the video game category of the Grammys that year. Discussions during the seminar range from expert analysis of composition best-practices, to sources of inspiration that fuel the creation of the Grammy nominated scores.  I remember participating in the GAME CHANGERS seminar as a nominee for Wizardry.  It was one of the most awesome online seminars I’ve ever participated in, and I was really honored to be a part of it!

Now, I’m thrilled to share that as the current Grammy winner in the video game category, I have been invited this year to serve as the official moderator for the seminar!  On December 16th, I’ll be interviewing all of the nominees for next year’s Grammy Awards, and I’m really looking forward to exploring their creative process in composing their Grammy-nominated video game scores.  It should be tremendously inspiring!  Only current members of the Society of Composers & Lyricists can attend this popular online seminar (more info here).  However, everyone can enjoy the Grammy-nominated scores composed by these celebrated video game composers!  With that in mind, I’m happy to share their work in this article.  I hope our readers will be inspired by the creativity and skill on display in these nominated soundtrack albums!

If you are a current voting member of the Recording Academy, you’ll find the following details helpful as you decide how you’ll vote in the video game category.  And if you’re not yet a member… why not consider joining the Recording Academy?  Any Recording Academy member can submit their soundtrack releases for Grammy Awards consideration.  Let’s get the video game composer community involved!  After all, the Grammys are famous for being ‘Music’s Biggest Night,’ so the video game music community should be a big part of it!  More information about joining the Recording Academy can be found here.

So now let’s explore these currently nominated soundtrack albums for the Grammy Awards!  I’ve listed them alphabetically by game title.  For each nominated score, I’ve provided a biography of the composer at the top, followed by a Spotify playlist of their nominated soundtrack, and a no-commentary gameplay video demonstrating the game for which the music was composed.  Enjoy!!

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora –
Secrets of the Spires

Pinar Toprak is a GRAMMY® and EMMY®-nominated composer, conductor, and performer. She’s nominated for a Grammy this year for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Secrets of the Spires. She made history as the first female composer to score a multi-billion-dollar video game (Fortnite). She also was the first female composer to score a billion-dollar film (Captain Marvel), and as a multidisciplinary composer, her credits include James Cameron’s Avatar universe and Disney theme park projects including the new Epcot theme. She’s a four-time winner of the International Film Music Critics Association Award for Best Original Score.

Helldivers 2

Wilbert Roget, II is a BAFTA® Award-winning and GRAMMY® nominated composer. He is nominated this year for two Grammy awards – one nomination for Helldivers 2, and one nomination alongside his co-composer Cody Matthew Johnson for Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card & A Pirate’s Fortune. His previous credits include the scores to Call of Duty: WWII, Mortal Kombat 1, Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance, and Pacific Drive. His scores have earned nearly a dozen awards and nominations from the Game Audio Network Guild, Academy of Arts and Sciences (DICE Awards), ASCAP Composers Choice Awards, and others.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Gordy Haab is a GRAMMY®-winning and BAFTA®-nominated composer. He’s nominated for a Grammy this year for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Gordy has scored major titles such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars: Battlefront I and II, and Halo Wars 2, earning multiple G.A.N.G. Awards, a BAFTA nomination, and the inaugural SCL Award for Best Interactive Score. His collaborations span the London Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Nashville Symphony, and his additional credits include The Walking Dead, Kinect: Star Wars, and Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings.

Star Wars Outlaws:
Wild Card & A Pirate’s Fortune

For this GRAMMY nominated soundtrack album, the aforementioned Wilbert Roget collaborated with Cody Matthew Johnson, so let’s introduce him!  Cody Matthew Johnson is a GRAMMY®, BAFTA® and DICE® Award nominated music producer, songwriter, and composer, nominated for a Grammy this year for his work on Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card & A Pirate’s Fortune. His other awards include a Hollywood Music in Media Award, a Global Music Award, and two Game Audio Network Guild Awards (including the Distinguished Service award). He’s also had his work featured on such game projects as Marvel Rivals, Trek to Yomi, Bayonetta 3, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2, Arknights, PUB-G Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, Honor of Kings, Quantar, Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, and more.

The official soundtrack for Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card & A Pirate’s Fortune consists of the music from two separate DLC story packs, so I’ve included the no-commentary gameplay videos for both here:

Sword of the Sea

Four‑time GRAMMY®‑nominated and two‑time BAFTA®‑winning composer Austin Wintory has earned a Grammy nomination this year for Sword of the Sea. He was previously nominated for Journey, Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, and Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Austin has scored more than 60 video games, including Assassin’s Creed and Towerborne. His music has been performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall during the BBC Proms Gaming concert. His other awards include a DICE Award, three International Film Music Critics Awards, a Hollywood Music in Media Award, and three Game Audio Network Guild Awards.

 

Conclusion

So those are the current nominees for the video game category of the Grammy Awards!  Recording Academy members – voting is currently underway, so don’t forget to vote!  The final day to cast your vote is January 5th, 2026!

For those of us who aren’t members yet, why not join?  By joining the Recording Academy and submitting our work, we can make sure that video games continue to be a strong presence in the Grammys each year!

Thanks for reading this overview of the Grammy nominees in the video game category.  My next article will be coming in January – I’ll be providing a big curated list of resources for game audio folks, gathered together for easy reference!  Until then, you can learn more about breaking into the video game industry in my book, A Composer’s Guide the Game Music.  In the meantime, I wish everyone a Happy Holiday and a fantastic New Year!

 

 

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Winifred Phillips’ accomplishments as a video game composer include her Grammy® Award-Winning original musical score for the video game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (listen to the official soundtrack on Spotify).  Her Wizardry soundtrack has also won a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award.  Phillips is known for composing music for games in many of the most famous and popular franchises in gaming: Assassin’s Creed, God of War, Total War, The Sims, LittleBigPlanet, Lineage, Jurassic World, and Wizardry.  Her music for Sackboy: A Big Adventure garnered a BAFTA Award nomination.  Phillips’ other awards include the D.I.C.E. Award, six Game Audio Network Guild Awards (including Music of the Year), and four Hollywood Music in Media Awards. She is the author of the award-winning bestseller A COMPOSER’S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC, published by the MIT Press. An interview with her has been published as a part of the Routledge text, Women’s Music for the Screen: Diverse Narratives in Sound, which collects the viewpoints of the most esteemed female composers in film, television, and games.  Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.