Our Story

Tonally is an award-winning production studio creating worlds with music & sound for games and other media. We bring a human touch to our work with real musicians and sound designers building custom audio that go far beyond expectations.

We believe game audio is much more than background music and basic sound effects—it has the power to move people and fully immerse them in another world. We invite players to form their own emotional connection with the game — a connection unique to each player’s journey.

The best games stay with people because of how they make them feel. We want them to be touched by our music and sound design every time they play. To embrace the experience now, and then remember it forever.

They don’t just hear the difference. They feel it.

Our sound comes from organic, live musician-driven scores combined together with modern music production of virtual instrument libraries and synthetic sounds. We’re at our best when we can be part of the planning from the early stages of the project, suggest how the music & sounds will best serve your product, and provide the full production from demo phase to the final master tracks and functional implementation.

Our expertise includes:

Creative & Technical Strategy: Understanding both the creative and technical aspects of games, and planning a set of sounds and music tracks that best serve your product.

Bespoke Music Composition: Composing unique, carefully crafted music especially for each project. Memorable, world-class themes and rich cinematic scores tailored to your game’s identity.

Advanced Hybrid Production: Melding full orchestration, arranging, and notation with cutting-edge synth programming and custom-coded VST libraries to build modern scores.

Live Musician Sessions: Working with a wide range of top-tier musicians across genres, from classical players to rare ethnic instruments, and managing world-class recording sessions.

Sound Design & Foley: Creating high-quality, custom environmental soundscapes, UI sounds, and adaptive sound effects that bring the game world to life.

Technical Support & Implementation: Delivering full mixing and mastering, along with technical support and audio implementation via industry-standard middleware (FMOD, Wwise, and engine-native tools).

In the suburbs of Espoo, Finland, the story of Tonally began in the 1990s with siblings Ilmari Hakkola and Salla Hakkola playing four-handed piano covers of classic video game scores like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man. Both were gaming audio enthusiasts from the start—one building his own sequencers for music-making, the other mastering the classics on the piano and the harp. As young professionals, they co-founded the production company Kombo with two friends, producing animation, post-production, and music for everything from commercials to short films.

Fast forward to the slingshot, the pigs, and the birds. In 2011, Kombo was acquired by Rovio, the entertainment giant behind Angry Birds. There, Ilmari and Salla founded the audio department, which rapidly grew into the largest mobile game audio team in the world. They were the creative minds behind branding the global Angry Birds phenomenon—giving it its characteristic quirky, Balkan-influenced tone driven by accordions, brass, and ethnic woodwinds. Together, they provided iconic scores for numerous Angry Birds titles, the cult-classic Tiny Thief, and the award-winning Fruit Nibblers, alongside animated shorts and major artist collaborations such as Slash, Shakira, Major Lazor and Darude.

Award-winning Sound Designer Jeremy Corbett soon joined the company as a partner. Bringing a wealth of expertise from King, Remedy Entertainment, Eurocom, and Free Radical Design, Jeremy’s career spans from fast-paced mobile hits to the absolute AAA giants of our time. He brought to Tonally an invaluable experience of managing large-scale audio teams and high-pressure productions, combined with a supreme technical mastery of audio middleware across diverse platforms—whether tailored for mobile screens or next-gen consoles.

After leaving Rovio in 2017 and 2019, Salla and Ilmari wanted to carry that world-class standard forward. They envisioned a studio built on organic artistry, utilizing real instruments and live musicians at the core of their soundtracks. Drawing inspiration from classic and experimental cinema, diverse world music, and rhythm music, they chose to operate far outside the traditional boundaries of what is usually expected from "game music."

“Game music is not a genre. There are absolutely no restrictions on what music should be like in games—your creativity is the only limit.”

Today, Tonally’s productions reach an audience of over 100 million players worldwide. Their portfolio features critically acclaimed soundtracks such as Merge Mansion (2020) and Friends & Dragons (2020), high-profile collaborations with Supercell’s Clash of Clans team, and the BAFTA-winning audio work on Returnal and Alan Wake II. Ongoing projects like Merge Mansion (Metacore) and Clash of Clans continue to delight global players with fresh, custom-crafted audio updates.

Expanding into the indie console scene, one of Tonally's latest projects is The Last Caretaker by Channel37—a haunting, post-apocalyptic sci-fi vision. Tonally architected both the deeply evocative soundtrack and the adaptive sound design for the atmospheric title, which won the prestigious Finnish Game Awards 2026 and is currently captivating players in its early-access stage.