As art forms, gaming and opera are polar opposites. Opera is seen as high culture, and has a history dating back centuries. In contrast, video games are a relatively young medium and have spent a great portion of their existence justifying theirstatus as art.
Yet as video games got narratively stronger in the 90s and beyond, they started incorporating elements from all art forms that preceded them. They took the cinematic approach of movies and incorporated music’s ability to dictate emotion. They grew increasingly literary, and even incorporated opera. You’ll probably never see a video game in an opera, but you’ve likely seen several operas in video games. Here are some of our favourites
8The Amusement Park Theatre
Nier: Automata
Nier: Automata’s amusement park section makes you reconsider thehumanity of machines. They are not as unfeeling as 2B and 9S have been led to believe: if they were, could Simone sing opera so beautifully? Isn’t art a good gauge of one’s humanity?
Unfortunately, Simone’s hobbies besides singing include cannibalizing machines. She fights you in a stylish boss battle where her keening operatic vocals and the stage upon which you fight make it a haunting battle. After the fight, the machines thank you for defeating this wayward opera singer.
7James Marcus' Lullaby
Resident Evil 0
James Marcus does not rank highly on lists of top Resident Evil villains. He is too weird, too off-putting, and too absent compared to more charismatic villains like Wesker. That may be part of the character’s conceit, though: he is too much of an outlier for us to like him, making him an effective antagonist.
A virologist by trade, Marcus also engages in opera singing in his spare time. When he reveals himself to Rebecca and Billy, he gives them a demonstration of his vocal chops before the final fight.
6A Night At The Opera
Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve is a unique combination of genres: survival horror and turn-based RPG. The game acted as a sequel to a book and was Square’s biggest foray into the horror genre. Its first FMV is burned into its fanbase’s memory forever.
When Aya Brea attends an opera performance inNew York, everyone in the audience spontaneously combusts except for her. The singer mutates and reveals Aya’s true nature to her: she is anything but an ordinary cop.
5I Want To Be Your Canary
Final Fantasy 9
Final Fantasy 9 was a culmination of the entire series up to that point. Despite its standalone status, the game feels very much like an ensemble performance. Its opening, where Zidane and his gang invade a theatrical performance, may have something to do with this.
The performance of I Want To Be Your Canary in FF9 introducesthe charactersso effectively that it feels like you’ve always known them. The music itself is top-notch, as is expected of a Nobuo Uematsu composition. This is one of the best opening levels a JRPG has ever had.
4The Great Mighty Poo
With Conker’s Bad Fur Day, developer Rare shed its child-friendly constraints and made an adventure that was rife with innuendo and toilet humour. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the operatic performance the game gives us.
The Great Mighty Poo is exactly what it proclaims to be: a giant pile of excrement. It sings opera while hurling bodily wastes at Conker, all the while inviting you to sing along with a little karaoke ball at the bottom of the screen. you’re able to get rid of the stench of this boss battle, but the memory will remain.
3Oh, One True Love
Undertale
Undertale is one of the defining games of the 2010s: it was a pop culture phenomenon. The game speaks to its audience because Toby Fox was raised in the same games as Undertale’s fanbase. One of those games was Final Fantasy 6; Undertale’s opera scene is an obvious tribute.
As Mettaton torments your character, he engages in an increasingly absurd series of scenarios with you. One of them is an opera segment where he tries his best to injure you, before engaging you in a boss battle where he reveals his true form.
2Maria And Draco
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy 6 was one of themost impressive gameson the SNES, and its opera scene will be talked about for decades to come. You don’t even have to name the game: when you say ‘the opera scene,’ this is the game everyone thinks of.
The original version, where Celes performs in place of popular singer Maria, awed fans with its MIDI vocals and beautiful instrumentation. So well-received was the scene that when Square Enix remastered the game in 2022, the biggest point of discussion regarding FF6 was the addition of real vocals.
1Curtains Down
Hitman: Blood Money
A lot of theatre operates on the rule of ‘good enough.’ No matter how much you rehearse, something can go wrong, and you have to make do. Unfortunately for the performers in Hitman: Blood Money, things do go wrong when they’re busy practicing a performance of Tosca. The actor playing the prisoner, sentenced to mock execution, is Agent 47’s target.
True to Hitman form, there are many ways to complete the Curtains Down mission, but we all know what a silent assassin would do. you may replace the prop gun with a real gun between performances so that when the next mock execution happens it’s the last one for the poor singer.
