Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago
The Three Kingdoms expansion for "Honor of Kings" gave me one of the more satisfying puzzles I've had: three kingdoms, three completely different sonic worlds, and a brief that said stay in the same orchestral palette for all of them.
This one resurfaced while I was building my GDC talk with Garry Schyman earlier this year ("Signature Sounds: Crafting a Cohesive Identity Across Games"), and I kept coming back to it.
"Honor of Kings" has 260 million monthly players. The Three Kingdoms refers to a period in the 200s when 魏 Wei, 蜀 Shu, and 吴 Wu were at war with each other. The brief: depict all three with total clarity, stay faithful to a modern Chinese orchestral sound, avoid clichés, and make them feel like they belong in the same universe.
魏 Wei (Weidu) — The prosperous Central Plains. Agricultural dominance, the strongest walls, the most formidable cavalry. Cao Cao's imperial ambition made sound: conquest, order, iron will.
蜀 Shu (Yicheng) — Mountain mists and mineral wealth. A kingdom of craftsmen and mechanical invention, where workshops define daily life and ingenuity is the greatest resource. Rugged, self-sufficient, singular.
吴 Wu (Jiangjun) — The southeastern coast, sheltered by a great river. Highly developed ports, long-distance maritime trade, connections as far as Fusang. Silk, gold, quiet power, and prosperity built on water.
Part of the answer ended up being a double string quartet nested into the existing orchestral cues, which gave me the vertical and horizontal density I needed to make each kingdom feel distinct without ever leaving the palette. Same eight players, same sophistication, but with a completely different weight in the room.
What ended up defining each kingdom more than anything was rhythm. Wei moves like a cavalry march that never quite arrives. Shu has the patience of someone working with their hands. Wu breathes like the tide. I think rhythm is where identity actually lives in music, more than harmony, more than timbre.
But I also kept reaching for melody that carried the identity of each kingdom without becoming a theme park version of it. That's a line I'm always trying to walk: melody that means something specific, not melody that decorates.
Each kingdom isn't just a place, it's a way of feeling, and the score had to make you feel the difference before you understood it. That's always the job for me: making the emotional landscape legible before anyone has to think about it.
The Three Kingdoms expansion for "Honor of Kings" gave me one of the more satisfying puzzles I've had: three kingdoms, three completely different sonic worlds, and a brief that said stay in the same orchestral palette for all of them.
This one resurfaced while I was building my GDC talk with Garry Schyman earlier this year ("Signature Sounds: Crafting a Cohesive Identity Across Games"), and I kept coming back to it.
"Honor of Kings" has 260 million monthly players. The Three Kingdoms refers to a period in the 200s when 魏 Wei, 蜀 Shu, and 吴 Wu were at war with each other. The brief: depict all three with total clarity, stay faithful to a modern Chinese orchestral sound, avoid clichés, and make them feel like they belong in the same universe.
魏 Wei (Weidu) — The prosperous Central Plains. Agricultural dominance, the strongest walls, the most formidable cavalry. Cao Cao's imperial ambition made sound: conquest, order, iron will.
蜀 Shu (Yicheng) — Mountain mists and mineral wealth. A kingdom of craftsmen and mechanical invention, where workshops define daily life and ingenuity is the greatest resource. Rugged, self-sufficient, singular.
吴 Wu (Jiangjun) — The southeastern coast, sheltered by a great river. Highly developed ports, long-distance maritime trade, connections as far as Fusang. Silk, gold, quiet power, and prosperity built on water.
Part of the answer ended up being a double string quartet nested into the existing orchestral cues, which gave me the vertical and horizontal density I needed to make each kingdom feel distinct without ever leaving the palette. Same eight players, same sophistication, but with a completely different weight in the room.
What ended up defining each kingdom more than anything was rhythm. Wei moves like a cavalry march that never quite arrives. Shu has the patience of someone working with their hands. Wu breathes like the tide. I think rhythm is where identity actually lives in music, more than harmony, more than timbre.
But I also kept reaching for melody that carried the identity of each kingdom without becoming a theme park version of it. That's a line I'm always trying to walk: melody that means something specific, not melody that decorates.
Each kingdom isn't just a place, it's a way of feeling, and the score had to make you feel the difference before you understood it. That's always the job for me: making the emotional landscape legible before anyone has to think about it.
