Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord wins Grammy for Best Soundtrack in a Video Game

Posted on February 4, 2025

Following the Game Awards and Steam Awards, this time of year is is naturally the season for other more mainstream awards shows in which video games still get some recognition. At the 67th Grammy Awards, the Grammy for Best Soundtrack in a Video Game has gone to something of a dark horse candidate with composer Winifred Phillips for the indie RPG Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, which was developed and published by Digital Eclipse last year.

In her speech when she accepted the award, Phillips thanked Digital Eclipse and the audience for “believing in music for games and recognising it and for breathing life and enthusiasm and energy into what we do. It means so much.” The other nominees for that award category were the composers for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, God of War: Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Outlaws, all games with substantially higher profiles than Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

“I am totally blown away,” Phillips said in a follow-up interview. “I cannot believe this, it’s just amazing, and it’s like a bright light just exploded in my head. I’m just blown over.” Acknowledging the other nominees, she stated that “the category was populated with so much brilliance this year and I have so much deep respect for the other nominees in this category. To have been recognised is just a highlight of my career, it truly is.”

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a full 3D remake of the first game in the Wizardry series which originally released back in 1981. The original game was a pioneer in video game graphics and gameplay, and is considered to be the very first party-based computer RPG. This is the third year in a row in which the Grammy Awards have included the Best Soundtrack in a Video Game category after it was introduced in 2023. The previous two winners in 2024 and 2023 were the composers for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla respectively.