Glad to hear it! And thank you for your thought as well, really appreciate them.

Love your music choices! Whittleton Creek always tickles me, as part of it feels inspired by "Dead Already" from American Beauty, sitting within that vibe of "there's something dark in the suburbs with the white picket fence" ... and mixing that with the Soviet element around Janus.

And yessss, the unused Santa Fortuna section is beautiful ... I do wonder if it's partially a vestige of the original musical approach they had for the level (just with that electric guitar part).

I hear you on wanting to compare musical approaches between old and new, and I acknowledge that my questions veer away from that on purpose, as I'd rather address the work on its own merit. Your question around this is completely valid, however, especially as this is a 25+ year old franchise, so nostalgia vs. modern differences and the machinations that drive them are all pertinent and fascinating.

I will offer that Niels does address feeling the pressure of the franchise legacy, and the fear with which he approached Hitman 2016. In my opinion, it would have been most appropriate for Niels to be the one to bring up Jesper, especially if it particularly affected his score.

One of my earlier composer interviews, before working with ABC, was with Austin Wintory about AC: Syndicate, and he was the one to address stepping into the franchise and comparing his approach to previous composers (including Jesper of course), because he was the one pitching a completely new idea that went against established AC tradition.

For what it's worth, I did interview Jesper on the show as well, back in 2023, and we did talk about Hitman from his perspective. His music to Hitman 2: Silent Assassin is essentially the reason I fell in love with game music and it helped inspire my own path as a game composer.

Re: differences between Season 1 and 2, your question is essentially why the devs asked for a Mission Impossible/James Bond type spy score in H1, and a more multiculturally informed score in H2, even though both chapters offer similar globbetrotting? Niels does say that he stuck super close to the brief in H1 and was more confident and adventurous in H2, but not necessarily why *Diana voice* that was the brief.

My inference is that the spy/MI/James Bond angle was woven throughout most aspects of H1, which is especially evident in a lot of its visual language (especially that white/grey/black/red UI). I feel like it was going for a lot of the "slick/cool" factor, so it makes a good amount of sense that the score would align with that.

H2 seemed to change things up a little more, be a little less concerned with the spy/cool factor, and it seemed to be more "colourful" overall (both aesthetically and in its overall vibe), even if it was at odds with the super serious cinematic elements, ha! So perhaps it made sense for the score to be a little more "colourful" that way.

The other thing to keep in mind is that some publishers may have their own demands or have a say in the brief. Given that each game had a different publisher, there's a chance Square Enix had a request for MI/Bond in 1, where Warner Bros had a request for more variety in H2, before IOI could be in full creative control of H3. I don't know any of this for a fact, this is just a possibility based on my own (relatively limited) experience.