Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Has Won A Massive Award
Assassin's Creed Valhalla took home a prestigious award, as the game won the first-ever Grammy for Best Soundtrack from a video game.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is one of Ubisoft’s most successful games ever; it sold more copies in its first week than any other Assassin’s Creed game, and the PC version had the most successful launch of any PC game developed and published by Ubisoft. So, it’s not really a surprise that it was one of the main contenders for the Game of the Year award. And while that award went to the last year’s Elden Ring, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla won another prestigious award — the first-ever Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack from a video game.
According to Destructoid, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok’s composer Stephanie Economou won the first-ever Grammy Award for videogame music on February 5. The composer claimed victory in the new category of Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media. The competition was tough, as other nominees included the musical artists from titles such as 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, 2021’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, 2020’s Old World, and 2020’s Aliens: Fireteam Elite.
Admittedly, this isn’t the first time gaming titles won a Grammy award; there were other winners in proper ceremonies, but this is the first time gaming musical scores received a category of their own. This category recognizes the excellence in score soundtrack albums created specifically for a current video game or other interactive media released within the qualification period. The Dawn of Ragnarok expansion for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was released in March 2022, which made it qualify for the award.
Dawn of Ragnarok is also the largest Assassin’s Creed expansion ever released, and it did very well among gamers and critics. Apparently, the music from the game was received just as well, as it managed to win a gramophone for its composer, Stephanie Economou, over some pretty tough competition. Economou is a composer and a violinist based in Los Angeles, with extensive experience in film and television scoring, which extends from drama to action to comedy releases.
Besides Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, her previous works also include Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy, Disney’s Mulan, and Ridley Scott’s Oscar-nominated movie The Martian, among many others. She’s also a resident board member of the Alliance for Women Film Composers and was the first and only woman nominated in the new Grammy category centered around video game music. The significance of the new category is massive and long overdue, as it attests to the rise of the gaming industry as a leader in entertainment, despite market instability.
Admittedly, gaming surpassed the film industry a long time ago, and the massive success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a testament to this fact. We can actually expect to see the Call of Duty composer Bear McCreary up for the next gaming Grammy with his work on God of War: Ragnarok. However, we can also expect gaming giants to start releasing their scores and soundtracks commercially, not just as parts of DeLuxe and Premium edition bundles. We’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Stephanie Economou for winning an award for her work on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
