Games

Total Annihilation

Everything by Jeremy Soule. Especially Guild Wars 2 and Skyrim.

Crysis 2

Overwatch

A Hat In Time

Doesn't look like anyone listed the Ori soundtracks by Gareth Coker yet, they're amazing. Also can't go wrong with WoW if you're looking for more classic fantasy style.

- little big adventure 2
- sim city 4
- starbound

Any Fromsoft soulsborne game.

The persona series has some great songs

Persona 3/4/5 (not all tracks are instrumentals, but most of them are and they are straight bangers)

Katana Zero Danganronpa 1, 2, V3 Silent Hill 1, 2, 3 (all I can vouch for, but I hear the later games still have banging soundtracks) Crosscode Kingdom Hearts 1/2 Nier Automata Minecraft Donkey Kong Country 1/2 VA-11 HALL-A Catherine Full Body Deadbolt Risk of Rain 1/2

Some of these you'd have to sift through, like Silent Hill is one part industrial creepy noise, and one part absolutely incredible hip hop and rock

Minecraft

Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters has some great tunes.

Edit: and The Talos Principle

The Dead Cells soundtrack. Especially:

• Prisoner's Awakening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzK3z8MLSpA&list=PLombWqRALIZDwEsPJuGvD6soVFA46I7f2&index=3)
• Clocktower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ1Pk8HBYJU&list=PLombWqRALIZDwEsPJuGvD6soVFA46I7f2&index=21)
• Temple (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0R4w7LvG4&list=PLombWqRALIZDwEsPJuGvD6soVFA46I7f2&index=20)
• Lighthouse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqHBOTFgcI&list=PLombWqRALIZDwEsPJuGvD6soVFA46I7f2&index=41)

Shadow of the Colossus OST https://youtu.be/57jIlw6HmCE?si=Lf3pXvLo7vT1DAeB

If you like metal... the tracks from 2004 Painkiller rocks.

Portal 2, Minecraft, Half Life 2, Black Mesa, Team Fortress 2, Battle Block Theatre, Doom 2016, Doom Eternal,...

There's a lack of Ace Combat in this thread so I'm going to single out 7's but they're all pretty good.

Also Redout has a soundtrack to spike your heartrate

Loop Hero

The Forest

Strafe

Kingdom: Classic

I prefer Sci-fi background noise so Surviving Mars is my favorite. Mass Effect is ok but I find it gets a little too cinematic and bombastic at times. FTL and Into The Breach, or really anything by Ben Prunty is good too

Stellaris. Absolutely fantastic.

Can't go wrong with pretty much any pre-Skyward Sword Zelda. SS itself also has Ballad of the Goddess, which was good, but I can't remember any other tunes from it or BOTW that aren't just reprises of tracks from previous games.

Overall, Surviving Mars might be my favorite work soundtrack. Assorted tracks from Stellaris plus the Age of Wonders and Civilization series are also good. Something about the soundtracks in 4X games and games like them always puts me in a productive mood while not making me emotional and thus distracted like RPG soundtracks can sometimes.

Since you like FF, I'd suggest looking into Uematsu's other works as well, especially Lost Odyssey. For similar ones in the genre, there's also Yasunori Mitsuda's work in the Chrono and Xeno series.

Portal / Portal 2

"Science Is Fun" is a great track, as are the end songs "Still Alive" and "I Want You Gone".

My favorite soundtrack ever, of course, is that of The Secret of Monkey Island (MT-32) by Michael Land. A lot of nostalgia there.

I also very much like the soundtrack to Dune by Stephane Picq. There's an edition that combines the Adlib, Adlib Gold, and MT-32 versions which is "chef's kiss". Alternatively, I can recommend the Space Opera edition.

Strike Commander by Nenad Vugrinec on MT-32 is also great.

For chiptunes, I really liked Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 by Alex Mauer.

Or, for a real classic, Earthbound by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka.

Yes, I have a bit of a thing for retro sounds. 😁

Spiritfarer has an excellent soundtrack, which is utterly wasted on such a mediocre game.

As an added bonus, some of the tracks on the OST are longer than you'll ever experience in game because they cut them short for some reason.

@MacedWindow Diablo 2 for sure

Rise of Nations soundtrack is fantastic sandis the only "video game music" that I semi-regularly listen to.

Especially check out "High Strung" that would always play in multiplayer whenever a player dropped a nuke on another player.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL829D6AF91A5C465E&si=yvPeVG9kuDx71mZb

Cloudpunk OST for a Blade Runner vibe.

I liked the music in La-Mulana 1&2.

Commenting here because I tend to enjoy game soundtracks and want to look these up.

Civilization Beyond Earth and Battletech have marvelous soundtracks

The Battlefield V soundtrack is pretty great, in my opinion.

No-one has suggested Baldur's Gate 3?

Wh40k: Mechanicus has some amazing music.