Trent Reznor composes theme for Black Ops 2

Nine Inch Nails front man and lifelong gamer Trent Reznor, who worked with id Software on the music for Quake and Doom 3, is back into game music, composing the theme for Treyarch's upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

Reznor, who has played such games as Diablo III, Heavy Rain and Skyrim, is also a fan of the Call of Duty franchise, according to an interview in USA Today. He said he put a lot of thought into how to portray the music:

"What I learned in listening to the full story and the amount of effort that has gone into the back story and the characters and the full preparation (is) there is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface. So it didn't make sense to have a gung ho, patriotic feeling theme song. It has to feel weighty. There is a lot of remorse and apprehension here. So choosing to arrange it a bit more with guitars and drums and aggressively sounding, that struck a tone with them.

"If it was set purely in World War II, for example, I wouldn't have chosen the instruments that I did. The fact that it is set slightly in the future made me feel like maybe it is OK to get away from an orchestra. So we did it the way we did."

Video Games Live co-producer Jack Wall, who worked on the score for Mass Effect 2, composed the rest of the music for the game.