Mass Effect composer Sam Hulick revealed in October that he was 're-scoring' the leaked trailer for Mass Effect: Universe to reflect his own "musical vision" for the game. The original, with an edit of "Quartz" by French 79, is pretty groovy, but now Hulick's work is done and this may not come as much of a surprise but I think I like his version better.

I'm not a music critic but I know what I like, and I really like the Mass Effect soundtracks. There's a broadly common sound threaded through all three games (I didn't play Andromeda so I'm just pretending it never happened) but they evolved over the course of the trilogy, too: Hulick told me his music in this trailer is "'a balancing act between paying homage to the original trilogy and exploring new ground", but leans most heavily toward Mass Effect 1 and 3.

"Mass Effect's earliest tracks were more about raw analog synth blended with orchestral elements, but more subdued and 'vibey' for lack of a better word," Hulick said in a recent chat with PC Gamer. "Mass Effect 2 leaned more into orchestral bombast (as with Jack Wall’s forever-famous 'Suicide Mission'), and Mass Effect 3 combined the best of both worlds, with plenty of epic, fist-pump-into-the-air orchestral moments, as well as sparse, moody synth-forward tracks like the ones I wrote for Mars."

Jack Wall, for the record, was lead composer on the original Mass Effect while Hulick served as co-composer; the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack brought back Wall and Hulick and added Jimmy Hinson and David Kates to the lineup, while Mass Effect 3 featured Hulick plus Sascha Dikiciyan, Christopher Lennertz, Clint Mansell, and Cris Velasco.

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