SEATTLE — Amid a hail of gunfire and the unruly hiss of flames spewing from dual nozzles, a local gamer could be seen bopping her head to the incredibly good music of the game’s pivotal boss fight, blissed out and in the zone, shortly before oh shit, she died, sources report.

“These are the moments I live for,” said Gabby Vasquez, on her 9th attempt to beat Armored Core VI’s Chapter 1 boss, the imposing PCA craft Balteus. “I’m focused, in my element— I’m timing the reload window of my right-arm weapon with how much ammo is in my left, otherwise I have to deal with two cooldowns while Balteus is unloading his shit. I’ve almost broken his pulse armor and I’m boosting in for my laser blade. Then I hear those rousing synths kick in. ‘Contact With You’ by Koto Hoshino, one of the game’s composers. It’s this beautiful, propelling theme. It puts you right in Raven’s shoes at that moment: the loneliness of mercenary life, but also that spark of hope that comes from finding SHIT. THE MISSILES? AGAIN WITH THE MISSILES?”

“I thought From nerfed that baby bitch move,” continued Vasquez moments later, changing her AC’s build in the Assembly menu to have another go. “But it’s no surprise. This is my first AC, but the Souls games have always had GOT YOUR ASS! always had these stellar tracks hidden away in boss fights that make you go damn, this kinda slaps? Everyone memes on ‘plin plin plon’ from Gwyn’s fight in the first Dark Souls, but I can think of no sadder song to destroy expensive gaming hardware to. There’s nothing quite oh shit, oh shit, wait I’m about to get him— don’t you move, don’t mo— okay, yes, yes… haha oh my god, YES… NONONONONONONO—”

When questioned, Vasquez’s roommate expressed concern for their friend’s relationship with the games she theoretically plays for fun.

“She really loves these games given how much she also despises them to the core,” said Val Richards, Vasquez’s roommate for the last three months. “I’ll admit, some of the songs are straight-up bops. ‘Vanguard’ from Demon’s Souls? Bangin’. ‘Steel Haze (Rusted Pride)’? That’s on my sex playlist. Thing is, I see Gabby listen to these songs on her own, outside of the game, and it doesn’t register the same way for her. It’s like every other note triggers a memory in her brain of a time she got curb-stomped by a rocket volley or bitch-slapped by an unblockable heavy attack. Last night I caught her listening to ‘Vordt of the Boreal Valley’ at her computer, and when the choir kicked in? Holy shit, you could see a change. Her eyes went wide. She started shaking. Like she was experiencing the second phase all over again. Which is actually kind of sad, because Vordt is like, piss easy.”

Composing music for a game is no easy feat, a fact video game composers are quick to admit.

“You’ve got bullets flying, swords clanging, NPCs talking in your ear, it’s like trying to compose in a car wash,” said one AAA composer. “It can be hard to create something beautiful in all that noise, but it’s my job to try. If I do my job right, I can get a player so lost in my symphony, in the seraphic harmonies of the orchestra, that they totally whiff a boost kick on Rusty which he takes advantage of to land a bullshit laser slicer combo attack that has you eating shit in the red skies above Rubicon. You can’t deny, that’s art.”

At press time, Vasquez had been hospitalized in a “Great Grey Wolf Sif”-related incident, sources say. Doctors are reportedly prescribing “Majula Theme 9 Hours Extended” in hopes of aiding her swift recovery.