Developer Housemarque’s PS5 exclusive Returnal is only a few weeks away at this point, as it is slated to launch on 30 April 2021. Ahead of the game’s upcoming launch, the developer has released the first track from Returnal‘s original soundtrack, giving us a glimpse into the atmosphere and tone of the game.

Returnal‘s original musical score is composed by Bobby Krlic, who also performs under the stage name The Haxan Cloak. If you’ve never heard of him, he was actually responsible for the soundtrack in 2019’s acclaimed horror movie Midsommar by Ari Aster, as well as Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 and Netflix’s Snowpiercer TV series.

The full album for the Returnal soundtrack will launch alongside the game on 30 April 2021 as part of the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game, and will later arrive on streaming platforms on 7 May 2021. However, you can already listen to the first released track, Crash, below (and from various other sources here).

Speaking with PlayStation Blog, Krlic said about the score in Returnal:

“There’s a certain way which the music is constructed within the game.

There’s a main bed or a theme for each environment, and then [we] extrapolate out of different combat music, or music for different shifts in that environment, when you’re in different places.

It gets bigger or smaller.

But I think, for me, it’s always important to first and foremost think in a macro way, you know, to always remember the world that we’re in, and then come into it in a micro way, focus individually for each biome.”

Returnal combines action with roguelike gameplay into a third-person shooter where players fight to survive a hostile planet that changes with every death. Players can switch instinctively between firing modes by using a single adaptive trigger and can get right back into the action after dying. Players assume the role of Astra space scout Selene as she is stuck in a constant loop of resurrection.

In the meantime, check out the trailer below: