Who is Salvatori?
Salvatori began writing music for video games in 1997 for a game called Myth:The Fallen Lords developed by Bungie. After this, he and his colleague/long time friend Martin O'Donnell became core pieces in writing Bungie's music for many great titles such as Oni, the Halo series, Destiny and its sequel Destiny 2. He even had the chance to compose alongside Paul McCarney for the initial sample of Destiny's music called the Music of the Spheres. Being a co-composer on the soundtrack for the original Destiny won him the award for Original Dramatic Score in 2014 along with the 2017 award for Video Game Score of the Year during Destiny:Rise of Iron. He worked with Bungie for many years and became a beloved part of the community with many praising his musical scores. During this time he still created other works like Stubbs the Zombie for Wideload Games in 2005. Unfortunately, Bungie laid him off amidst the October 2023 layoffs that resulted in more than 100 members of the game studio being terminated alongside him. He will always leave a lasting mark on the music for the Destiny universe for all he has done for the company as well as the community.
Salvatori is praised as being a master of video game music. His ability to create leitmotifs within songs and tie them into another work is almost unmatched. He is most well known for the songs Halo, Journey, and Regicide. These are core songs that many people (even those who have never played these games) associate with nostalgic memories. Even while the state of these games could be disastrous, the soundtrack was always guaranteed to be one of the best in gaming history when Salvatori was involved. Most of this is due to the leitmotifs that he utilized liberally. He was able to create new songs with the same basic building blocks for the original content. With a spin or two, the songs felt totally different but familiar at the same time. He will always be a titan within the video game industry with his impressive repertoire of music.