The Psychology of Sound: How Regional Tastes and Musical Traditions Shape Emotion in Digital Games Across Canada and Brazil

Digital games are popular across all cultures, and their international appeal doesn’t diminish the regional differences that apply to the end product, depending on where it’s developed. For instance, a game made in Canada’s booming interactive entertainment industry will have a totally different sonic fingerprint from one hailing from way down south in Brazil. So, here’s an overview of music’s influence in gaming, how it differs depending on regional influences, and why digital games need great soundtracks to be psychologically satisfying.

Fueling Tension & Providing Focus

The musical techniques that ratchet up the tension and encourage players to focus on what’s happening onscreen are definitely culturally dependent.

Brazilian-developed games benefit from being made in a part of the world where high-tempo, high-BPM (beats per minute) music genres, driven by syncopated percussion and pounding basslines, are the norm. The faster the drums roll out of the speakers or headphones, the tenser the player will become. Meanwhile,  there’s still room for the more relaxed, rhythmic vibe of bossa nova to match the player’s resting pulse rate, keeping them focused on the task at hand.

Canada’s cultural preferences for post-rock minimalism and ambient, synth-driven musical styles serve a similar purpose but use different approaches to achieve the end goal of player engagement. For instance, sites that provide blackjack online for Canada can use subtle, consistent music so that players are pulled in hand after hand. Then, as the action intensifies, faster beats and orchestral swells step in to seal the deal, especially in Canadian-created franchises like Assassin’s Creed.

Making Memories & Manipulating Emotions

Brazil’s musical heritage makes games developed within its borders, or inspired by its culture, singularly exotic and interesting to audiences in other countries. That’s a useful starting point for creative teams, since it means they already have the upper hand in the audio department by shaping how people form memories and respond emotionally to the soundscape.

The organic, historically influenced nature of homegrown Brazilian genres speaks to a time and place that international players won’t necessarily have experienced firsthand. So in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which may not be set specifically in Brazil but share South American cultural touchstones with it, the music does much of the heavy lifting for scene-setting. And for locals, there’s that familiarity and connection with audio they know well, which creates its own impact on memories and emotions.

Canada’s cooler climate surely leaves its mark on the kinds of music the country produces, and again, there’s that closer connection with digital, ambient soundscapes. When development of the Deus Ex franchise shifted to a Canadian studio in the 2010s, we got synth-heavy, precision scores that tied into the country’s contemporary music scene, as much as to the urban, futuristic setting of the games themselves.

So, it’s impossible to overstate just how vital the right music can be in creating tension, focus, and emotion in digital games, with cultural elements from places as far apart as Canada and Brazil expressing themselves in distinct ways and impacting audiences differently depending on their own backgrounds.

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