2022 Year-End Update and a Look at 2023

2022 YEAR-END UPDATE & A LOOK AT 2023

tl;dr

In 2022 we...

grew our Utopia family nearly twice as much as expected
released over 30 new songs for EU4, across two albums and various main themes
celebrated our second birthday
expanded to Cities: Skylines and Victoria 3!

In 2023 we will...

release an OST for Anbennar
release new theme music for various EU4 mods
be stepping back from the CK3 Music Expanded Project
be slowing the pace of updates & releases for the first half of the year
welcome many wonderful new Utopians into the family!

A note from me

Before diving into the juicy details of the year-end update I want to give a short message of thanks!
Without each and every one of you, Utopia would not exist today. When I wrote my first set of music for EU4, it was meant to be a one-off bucket-list thing. But the energy and kindness and downright epicness of the community has kept me here, still composing music for all of your awesome projects. I read every comment on YouTube and Steam, and always they warm me and encourage me to keep going.
So thank you for your loyalty and your respect and your engagement. It's delightful to be here to create music for our community and to improve your gameplay experience overall. I am here for your entertainment, for as long as you tell me you want it so.

2022 was an incredible year for Utopia, better than I ever expected. But if Utopia were a rocket ship then 2022 was only the year we got on board. In 2023... grab your headphones and climb aboard. This ride is about to get lit.

See you up there.

- Utopia

2022 in Review

Recap

The easiest way to talk about 2022 is to simply say incredible. We kicked off the year with fabulous releases for Flavor Universalis and Ante Bellum, leading to the OST release and 1.7 trailer. But the momentum didn't stop, with releases for 1356 and Third Odyssey shortly after. The first half of the year was capped off with an Anbennar release and we shifted into the second half of the year where I experimented with a variety of different things. This is what produced the Serenades album, a couple of non-EU4 releases and the ongoing short clips currently appearing every two weeks on Youtube. I also gave some attention to Cities: Skylines and Victoria 3, attempted to mod Civilization 6, and created the super-helpful Music Mod Creation Tool.

Truth be told, my non-EU4 work has not been as success as I'd have liked, but I've very glad I did it. I learnt a lot about my music and my fans by working on all this new, strange stuff, and that means in 2023 I can refocus and make even better music that you like!

The star of 2022 was undoubtedly the Ante Bellum Original Soundtrack, which is smashing everything out of the park and rapidly taking over the Utopia top-ten. I am almost avoiding trying to write more OST's because I don't know how I can compete with myself. I have also been very pleased with how the Third Odyssey main theme has been received and it's definitely something I'd like to do more work with.

In total, we released 34 new songs for EU4 in 2022. That's at least an hour an a half of additional music to spice up your campaigns!

Stats

In 2022 the Utopia family grew almost twice as much as I was expecting!
Here's some fun stats that highlight how awesome the year was.

Youtube

Subscribers: 187 -> 905
Views: 45k -> 252k
Most views in a day: 9.1k (Sept 17)
Most watched video: Ante Bellum 1.7 Announcement Trailer (24.5k views)

Spotify

Streams: 26k -> 74k
Followers: 80 -> 156
Most streamed song: Into the Beyond (4.8k)

2023 First-Look

Alright, the good stuff! While in 2022 I experimented with a couple of new and different things, in 2023 I want give you exactly what you came here for. So the coming year is going to be focussed solely on one thing: Europa Universalis IV. No distractions, just another 30+ tracks of great new music for the game.
So what will this look like?

note: the announcements below are part of the intended pipeline, there is no guarantee that everything will go to plan

Anbennar Original Soundtrack

Yep, you read that right. In 2023 I will be returning to the Anbennar world to finish what I started. Aiming for a Q4 release, expect a complete OST of grand-scale magic and fantasy. I'll be exploring various cultures, regions and realms in the Anbennar world to tell a compelling and enjoyable musical story. Expect to see lots of info coming through on this from Q3 onwards!

Ante Bellum 1.8 & 1.9

The Ante Bellum steam train continues into 2023 with full music tracks for the upcoming 1.8 and 1.9 updates, plus the obligatory 1.9 announcement trailer. Of course, I can't share any details on what's planned for 1.9, but you can expect some more info in Q3, plus the 1.8 music in Q1.

Main Themes

In Q1 & Q2 you can expect new main themes for Extended Timeline and Imperium Universalis. Yes, finally some ET music (it's 90% complete but technical difficulties have caused delays). Both music tracks are already sounding pretty awesome and I can't wait to share them with you.
Additionally, I've kept a few slots open later in the year for a few more main themes in Q3 & Q4, so we will see what I feel like working on closer to the time!

Other Stuff

There are a few more projects in the pipeline, some of which I want to keep as a fun surprise. Two things you can be sure of: the annual birthday celebration in August, which I hope will be the best EU4-themed Utopia party you've ever been to; and the end-of-year Christmas song, which will be Third Odyssey redux.

Tying up loose-ends

Finally, I want to talk about a couple of things that will be changing around here for 2023.

The first is that my involvement in the CK3 Music Expanded Project is shifting loosely into an advisory role. This is due to scheduling and new opportunities that have arisen in the first-half of 2023. I absolutely want to deliver the Anbennar music this year, so I felt it was best to step back and focus on completing the work I need to in Q1 & Q2, to enable me to work on Anbennar in Q3 & Q4.

The second change, as implied by the first, is that the rate of releases will be slowing down in 2023. As I focus on EU4 for the year and look to 2024 and beyond I am aiming to work on less, but more impactful projects. This means I have to spend more time working on bundles of music before anything can be released. What this means for you is less Main Themes and more OST's. However, there is a second, personal, angle here, and that's my desire to work a little slower and enjoy myself more. I don't want to burn out, and nor am I interested in turning all of this into a chore or a second-job. I do this for fun and I want it to continue to be fun, and sometimes that means not doing it at all. For comparison, I worked on the Ante Bellum OST for around 4 hours a day, for 3-4 months, on top of my day job. Burn out is real folks, look after yourselves. So there will be less releases in 2023 as I focus on bigger projects and allow myself to take some breaks and do whatever I want to.

Third, and as a consequence of the above two changes, I will be reducing the frequency of project updates to four-week cycles for the first half of the year. Essentially, this means one update per month. To put it bluntly, with what's in the pipeline, I won't have much I can share during the first few months of the year and these posts take a lot of effort, so it's a natural change. The year is very back-heavy, so I hope to return to two-week cycles with lots to share in the second half.

The End

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope you've enjoyed the read, learnt some new things and are excited for the year ahead. 2023 has some awesome stuff coming, so I hope you put on those headphones and hang about. Every Utopian is a treasure and this coming year I'm expecting some awesome new additions to the family.

Happy New Year! Have a fantastic 2023. I'll see you in music-heaven

Enjoy.