As many gamers will tell you, a title’s musical score can help make a game not just feel more alive but make it memorable. So think about your favorite franchises; their themes and tracks will start playing in your head. Composer Jesper Kyd is a man who has worked on many franchises’ in his time, but the one that helped him reach new fame was Assassin’s Creed. In fact, he just began a concert tour featuring the music of the series. The “Symphonic Adventure” started in Paris and will go to many other locations. During an interview, the composer talked about his time with the franchise and making music for it and others.
One of the first things he admitted in the interview was that to do a single game was a massive undertaking not just by him but all of Ubisoft:
“Each Assassin’s Creed game is such a huge undertaking. Once you start working on an Assassin’s Creed game, you’re slowly becoming aware of how huge these games are.”
He cited how the most recent game in Valhalla was built by 16 different teams within Ubisoft, showing not just the scope of the game but the developer. Kyd also said that despite working on many scores for the series, he has fond memories of every title he participated in.
One of the things he’s most pleased about was the reaction to his music by the fans. He cited how with the last main title, they released clips of the music while he was still writing the rest of the. The fans heard the clips and then talked about them endlessly online. He’s happy that the fanbase for the games is so huge that some of them appreciate every aspect of it.
It should be noted that Kyd didn’t work on every game in the franchise. He was there at the beginning and worked until Revelations came out. Then, he came back for Valhalla. By then, he noticed that the franchise had changed in many ways. He cited how the games had gone from being in cities to having sweeping landscapes that you could traverse. That led to him doing very different scores for Valhalla because that’s what the game required.
In terms of favorites, he cited Assassin’s Creed II as the best. That was because Ubisoft was still trying to figure things out in the first game. But with the sequel, they knew what the “rules were” and thus could have a more relaxed experience as they expanded on everything.
With the franchise growing in multiple ways in the future, it’ll be interesting to see what Kyd and others do with the series. The music will be as crucial as before, with new lands to adventure in and new characters to meet.
Source: IGN India
