Rik Schaffer

A member of rock bands including Tomorrow's Child and Engines of Aggression throughout the 1990s, Rik Schaffer transitioned to video-game composer on assignments such as Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon (2002). His often-percussive game scores mix elements of rock, metal, ambient electronic, and classical music. Among his best-known soundtracks are the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines series, with installments in 2004 and 2020. From the late '80s to the early 2000s, Schaffer, a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, played guitar in Los Angeles-area bands including the glam rock-inspired outfit Tomorrow's Child and heavy metal group Engines of Aggression. Though Tomorrow's Child disbanded in 1992, German label Dream Circle Records released their self-titled debut in 1993, the same year Engines of Aggression issued the Speak EP on Priority Records. Engines' full-length debut, Inhuman Nature, appeared on the same label a year later. A second collection of material from Tomorrow's Child, Rocky Coast Rough Sea, arrived on Dream Circle in 1996. Schaffer's own post-grunge project, Womb, debuted that year with Bella, also on Dream Circle. Another solo project, the more prog rock-leaning Nectar, issued the long-player Afterglow in 1997. Returning to Engines of Aggression, he and bandmates self-released an eponymous EP in 2001. Around that time, Schaffer started finding work as a dialogue editor and sound editor/engineer/recordist on video games. His earliest game scores included contributions to 2001's Dark Age of Camelot and work as main composer of hand-combat game Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon, released in 2002. While juggling various positions in the sound departments of games like Pitfall: The Lost Expedition, Shrek 2, and Doom 3, he composed original music for entries in the Spawn, The Scorpion King, and X-Men franchises. His most acclaimed score to that point became 2004's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Set in the Los Angeles underworld, it navigated industrial music, ambient synthesizer atmospheres, and references to traditional international fare. He also acted as voiceover recording engineer, dialogue editor, and foley artist on the game. As his reputation for action-genre-appropriate material grew, he was enlisted to write scores for the 2005 video game Fantastic Four and 2006's X-Men: The Official Game (aka X3: The Official Game). The role-playing game Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer followed in 2007. Among his other projects was dialogue editing for 2007's Spider-Man 3 and 2008's Call of Duty: World at War. In 2009, Kyle Rea's experimental film short Non Sequitur was inspired by Schaffer's game music. Schaffer collaborated with Brad Derrick on music for The Elder Scrolls Online, which saw release in 2014, before returning to Vampire: The Masquerade for 2020's Bloodlines 2. In the meantime, Milan Records issued his score for the original game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, on formats including double vinyl in 2019. ~ Marcy Donelson