Assassin's Creed: Valhalla soundtrack

The Assassin's Creed: Valhalla soundtrack is a collection of music tracks written by Danish composer Jesper Kyd, American composer Sarah Schachner, and Norweigan composer Einar Selvik that were used as background music in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Players who pre-ordered the Collector's Editions of Valhalla received a CD with select tracks from the game.

Background

On 14 July 2020, a 7-track EP titled Out of the North was announced as a promotion for Valhalla. Its first track, which shared the same name as the EP and would also be in the main album, was then released for preview. The EP's second and final tracks, "The Sceptred Isle" and "Hrafnsmál - The Words of the Raven", were released early on 15 July and 16 July, respectively. A second EP titled The Ravens Saga was announced on 2 August with an expected release date of 7 August. The main theme for Valhalla was released for preview on 6 August. There were no further updates until 2 November, when a second track titled "Silent Ambush" from the main album was released for preview and fan site Access the Animus revealed its cover, number of tracks, and release date. On 5 November, a third track titled "The First Departure" from the main album was released. It would be the final track publicly available to preview, as Valhalla launched internationally just five days later.

Even with the lengthy main album and two EPs, there was still more music to come, as the EP Wave of Giants was announced a mere two weeks later on 24 November with an expected release on 4 December and one of its tracks "Dagar eru Taldir - Days Are Numbered" was uploaded for preview. As the new year arrived, two more full albums of over two hours of music each were announced, with both Twilight of the Gods and Sons of the Great North releasing together on 29 January 2021. Finally, a little over a year after Valhalla's debut, another EP was released on 26 November titled The Weft of Spears, featuring six Norse songs written and sung by Einar. This was Valhalla's last music compilation, making the game's released score ultimately spread across an unheard-of 7 albums with a staggering total time of just under 6 hours, ^{[citation needed]} excluding duplicated tracks.

Composition

In an interview with Ubisoft Montreal two days before Valhalla's debut, Music Supervisor Simon Landry said that the hardest part about creating video game music was ensuring it would accentuate a game's experience without distracting players, especially since game scores are generally not written linearly as often done for films. The moment he and Music Director Aldo Sampaio were told that a new game and score were being made, the two met to discuss initial music themes they thought should be conveyed to players and also drafted a list of composers who fit the vision yet were within the project's budget. In the end, the music department decided to have Jesper Kyd and Sarah Schachner write the score in a joint effort. To Sampaio, Kyd's emotional tracks worked well with Schachner's talent for orchestration that combined Nordic and Anglo-Saxon elements with the analog synthesizers that have become a staple in music for the Assassin's Creed series. Although Landry and Sampaio had signed on composers, they still felt they were missing the crucial element of authentic Norse sounds and lyrical rhythms. Through Ubisoft's partnership with music publisher BMG as well as Sampaio's personal interest, they were introduced to Einar's band Wardruna. Inspired by what they heard, developers quickly began using much of the group's discography as temp tracks for test gameplay. Following some email exchanges, Landry and Sampaio were invited to a private performance by the group in Norway's coastal city of Bergen, where they were impressed enough to offically sign Einar onto the team.

The three composers worked together on Valhalla's main theme, which they all wanted to evoke an overall atmosphere of uncertain mystery. Ideally, the cue was to reflect both the hopes of the Raven Clan Vikings and Eivor Varinsdottir as they left for a better future in England, yet also highlight the intense emotions as the voyagers' family bonds would be tested after separating from the main group. Kyd wrote a draft version for acoustic cello and metallic drums before updating it with contemporary Norse instruments such as harps, Viking horns, bass flutes, and fiddles, all of which were blended with sounds from a mixing console. When asked about the haunting melody played on string, Schachner said that she wanted the double-tempo cue to initially feel ambiguous in its repetition, as if tensely waiting for longships to emerge from fog before exploding in crescendo to represent Eivor's epic journey in the game. At the same time, Kyd drafted accompanying vocals concepts for Selvik, who relied on his twenty years of experience in Norse ethnomusicology to bring the necessary emotion required in recreations of Norwegian music.

For her tracks, Schachner drew inspiration from archaeologist Max Adams' book The Viking Wars: War and Peace in King Alfred's Britain: 789–955, which sparked ideas on how to musically emulate the Viking and Anglo-Saxon cultures merging as the Norse people were absorbed into an Anglo-Scandinavian society. When writing "The First Departure", Schachner wanted the somber tune to give listeners the auditory sensation of Vikings drawn to lucrative English farmlands while "The Sceptered Isle" came after reading in Adams' book about Vikings converting from their mythical beliefs to Christianity even after raiding countless churches, and so has Norse lyrics based on the runic inscriptions on the Karlevi Runestone sung over an Old English liturgical harmony, all backed by minor effects from a Minimoog Voyager analog synthesizer. Because the COVID-19 pandemic had hit much of the globe by the time she wrote the track, the choral arrangement was performed by herself, her boyfriend Kyle, and recorded excerpts of Einar's voice. To further musically foreshadow the two peoples joining, she incorporated a mix of instruments from each region that would all play in her cues, such as the Scandinavian lyre known as a tagelharpa and the Celtic carnyx from Scotland.

The existence and sound of the carnyx drew her particular attention when a family friend sent her a YouTube video of the British trombonist John Kenny playing the instrument. After eventually contacting him through email, she asked him if he could play it for her in a recording session, to which he agreed. Perhaps most importantly, Kenny is among a very select few people in the world who can actually play the carnyx after he was invited by the Scottish composer Dr. John Purser to join the National Museum of Scotland's reconstruction effort of the Deskford Carnyx based off its preserved bell. Unlike some horns where the bell is decorative, the carnyx's bell is unique in that it is built to replicate a skull with a hinged jaw and moving tongue, making its sounds resonante. Additionally, none of its notes are perfect like modern brass trumpets due to its shortened cone at the bottom, instead adopting a harmonic series made up of a major third, a diminished seventh, and a major seventh. Schachner described these unusual tone intervals as "sound[ing] wild [and] scary, but also beautiful at the same time" and was driven to include the instrument in the cues for Eivor's visions when reliving Odin's genetic memories from Ásgarðr. To her, the notes captured a feeling of conflicting emotions, and including the horn in Valhalla's mythical parts felt like musical echoes of an ancient time leaking into the game's setting since the horn is older than the Viking Age. Because of the carnyx's limited note range, Schachner could not write a defined score for Kenny and instead had him explore what techniques like crescendos would work and how well in order to get sounds to build upon later. The pair did all their music within a single, 11-hour Zoom call in early March 2020, during which Schachner would describe an emotional idea she wanted to give shape to and Kenny would play on the Deskford Carnyx, the reconstructed one from Tintignac, and two seperate reproductions for a variety of tones to choose from. Other instruments they tested included conch shells, a 12-foot alphorn, a rebuilt horn found in an Irish peat bog, and a guitar used in "Asgard – Hall of the Æsir" to harmonize with the carnyx's artificially-changed minor third pitches.

As a Dane himself, Kyd was surrounded by exaggerated Viking lore all his life but felt a need for Valhalla's album to look past the wild stories and find the true history written down. He was particularly drawn to the notion of life stories being cyclical, ending and restarting in flames like the Poetic Edda's Ragnarök cycle, which was written during centuries of climate instability when volcanic ash plumes often blocked the sun and drastically inhibited farming attempts in higher latitude regions like Norway. The idea of rebirth stuck with him and he tried to ensure that as much of his repertoire as possible was either from the Viking era or sounded like they would have naturally accompanied those instruments as they backed retellings of the epic cycles. His score predominantly used winds and strings. In his research, he found that much music claiming to be "Viking-inspired" was too dark and pulsating, reflecting how current society still sees them as no more than brutish warriors bent on violence. By using lighter-sounding instruments, Kyd hoped to bring a sense of spirituality to Valhalla, reminding players of the bonds of family or the rugged majesty of the snow-capped mountains and fjords, as he tried to convey in the track "Out of the North".

When Kyd wrote his cues, he wanted to stylistically harken back to his old format of emotional music meant for ambient wandering after many years away from Assassin's Creed doing more focused tracks for other projects. His goal when composing was to subtly remind players by mixing electronic music with traditional instruments that what they were seeing on-screen was still an Animus simulation. Rather than using pre-recorded soundbites, Kyd felt it was important to have live performances be the foundation for his auditory world-building, even if he initially had no idea how to compose a score for ancient instruments beyond his repitoire. In the track "Kingdom of Wessex", he tried to highlight the feeling of being a Viking in an unexplored land with an acoustic guitar representing the English that backed intermingling male and female vocals for the Norse, which were also a nod to how the Animus could represent Eivor as a man or woman. The woman's abtsract choral pieces were performed remotely by Melissa Kaplan, who has previous history with the series as the vocalist behind the "Ezio's Family" theme in past games. The track also used a "spring box", something Kyd described as a plain, 4-foot wooden box from the 1960s with a spring inside that vibrated to create acoustic reverberation.

The "Ezio's Family - Ascending to Valhalla" remix was written in three parts. After reestablishing the repeating eight-note sequence that is core to the theme, Kyd had the track shift away from the melody to an airy new tune on strings with vocals by Selvik, Kaplan, and Clara Sorace meant to suggest the music was literally floating up into the heavens as written in the track title. Finally, the cue concludes by returning to "Ezio's Family", but this time is a variation blended with the Nordic instrumentation from the second part to immerse the listener with their familiarity of Assassin's Creed but a newer setting. The main cue was performed on doubled tagelharpas and with a bronze lur, a blowing horn that dates back to the Bronze Age and was used in Norway to communicate across vast distances or scare off predators in shepherds' pastures. The vague whispering heard at the start is Selvik saying Odin's name in Old Norse and reciting a poem about Valhalla near the cue's end.

To enhance the effect of already-old instruments, Kyd added sounds from guitars, a Eurorack modular synthesizer, both the Yamaha CS-80 and Prophet 10 analog synthesizers recorded through a Danelectro amp from the 1950s, the Roland Corporation's SH-5 monophonic and RS-505 paraphonic synthesizers, and an ARP Odyssey. For both Schachner and Kyd, the score provided a chance to familiarize themselves with more exotic stringed instruments beyond their usual repertoire. Schachner acquired an alto tagelharpa from California, a bass tagelharpa from Russia, and a plucked lyre, all strung with horsehair, while Kyd learned how to use the Eastern European rebec, the Welsh crwth, and the Mongolian morin khuur, and suffered bleeding fingers from having to repeatedly tune and play them by himself.

For his part, Selvik focused on how most of medieval Norway had a stong oral society, with everything from stories to family geneologies often recited by skalds in spoken verse. Thus, he regularly wrote Old Norse lyrics in a "skaldic format" or adapted passages from Norse texts that he felt were relevant to the scenes they would be played over, then composed accompanying music for the words. Some songs, like "Hrafnsmál - The Words of the Raven", would be environmental and sung by in-game characters like the Sea-Chariot's helmsman Bragi, while others would only play nondiegetically in select mission sequences.

When Selvik sang, he intentionally wanted the words to sound like unpolished live performances rather than something cleaned in a sound studio. All his solo material was recorded on his own in a series of one-takes, but it did not stop him from using the studio for his ensemble pieces so that they had harmonies where he felt was appropriate. His history with traditional Norse music found not only did its modern interpretaions often sound wrong, echoing what Kyd learned in his own research, but that they also relied too much on rhythms of common time with its 4-beat intervals. His own studies, by contrast, revealed that older songs had no issue using patterns of three, five, or even seven beats per measure. His experiences also meant that he knew what an instrument's note range was and what vocal sounds would best fit it.

Like Schachner, Selvik acquired a tagelharpa to play and record, and also made use of a lur. Because the horn lacks finger holes to change the notes, it is locked in a harmonic scale dependant on the horn's length and the player's embouchure on the mouthpiece, something that Selvik felt gave it a more authentic sound. Continuing his theme of traditional instruments, he also personally assembled and played various percussive instruments made from animal parts. These included a set of rawhide frame drums, hoof bells, and shakers made from hooves or tough hide and stones.

Despite Selvik's personal insistence of using traditional instruments to replicate authentic sounds, he was well aware that he had to strike a balance between pushing the limits of what was real and the expectations of modern listeners. To his ear, some of the songs were very true to history in their tones and instrumentation, while others were more free-style because they incorporated long droning sounds present in his current music or were mixed together in the studio to create entirely new sounds. In his view, while historians and musicians could partially decipher how instruments were used or skaldic poems were performed, it still relied on educated guesswork, though he clarified that the effort in creating a soundscape for entertainment would have very different standards than if a museum commissioned him to make music for an exhibit.

Track listing

1. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Main Theme (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:15
2. Out of the North - 3:49
3. Shadow-Walker - 2:26
4. The First Departure - 2:26
5. Wave Walker - 2:40
6. Leofrith's Honor - 2:01
7. When Horns Resound - 2:36
8. Horni Hljomar - When Horns Resound - 4:36
9. Frozen Lands - 3:59
10. Kingdom of East Anglia - 5:36
11. The Bounteous Earth - 3:15
12. Asgard – Hall of the Æsir (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:28
13. The Bearded Axe (feat. Einar Selvik) - 2:51
14. Valhalla Nights - 2:18
15. Drenglynda Skáldið - The Steadfast Skald - 2:22
16. Bifröst - 3:00
17. Silent Ambush - 3:04
18. The Fate of East Mercia - 3:21
19. Fulke's Destiny - 2:04
20. Trust the Currents - 2:33
21. Leaving Valhalla - 1:32
22. The Swarming - 2:54
23. Kingdom of Wessex - 3:39
24. Father of Gods - 2:19
25. Rivers and Fjords - 1:07
26. Vigahugr - Lust for Battle - 4:43
27. Clouds Over Northumbria - 3:40
28. Ravensthorpe - 2:43
29. Jarls, Karls, and Thralls - 2:00
30. The Frozen North - 3:08
31. Raids of Rage - 2:37
32. Helreið Oðins – Odin's Ride to Hel - 5:02
33. Nótt - 2:42
34. To the Next World - 2:25
35. Animus Anomaly - 3:39
36. Son of Fjord - 4:15
37. The Sceptered Isle - 2:13
38. Hausbrjótr - Skullcrusher - 5:15
39. New People, Old Empires - 2:59
40. Fury of the Northmen - 2:15
41. Absence of Light - 3:05
42. Knowledge of the Birds - 2:36
43. Carry Me to Valhalla - 3:01
44. Loki's Return - 1:42
45. Blood Red Sails - 2:16
46. Hrafnsmál - The Words of the Raven (skaldic version) - 3:06
47. Ezio's Family - Ascending to Valhalla (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:54

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Out of the North

1. Out of the North - 3:49
2. The Sceptered Isle - 2:13
3. Holmgang - 1:36
4. Kingdom of Wessex - 3:39
5. The Tree of Life - 2:31
6. The Guardian - 1:33
7. Hrafnsmál - The Words of the Raven - 5:20

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Ravens Saga

1. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Main Theme (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:15
2. Son of Fjord - 4:15
3. Asgard - Hall of the Æsir - 3:28
4. Hausbrjótr - Skullcrusher - 5:15
5. Odin's Plunder - 2:41
6. The Well of Wyrd - 2:45
7. Vígahugr - Lust for Battle (skaldic version) - 2:20

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Wave Of Giants

1. Vigahugr - Lust for Battle - 4:43
2. Dagar eru Taldir - Days Are Numbered - 4:06
3. Drenglynda Skáldið - The Steadfast Skald (skaldic version) - 3:39
4. Lof hins Gjafmilda - Honour To The Generous - 3:11
5. Helreið Oðins - Odin's Ride To Hel - 5:02
6. Til Vinskapar - To Friendship - (skaldic version) - 3:22
7. Hrafnsmál - The Words Of The Raven - 5:20
8. Hausbrjótr - Skullcrusher - 5:15
9. Rúnar skaltu Kunna - Those Runes You Must Know - 3:47
10. Vegurinn til Valhallar - The Way to Valhöll - 5:28

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Twilight of the Gods

1. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Main Theme (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:15
2. Frozen Lands - 3:59
3. The First Departure - 2:26
4. Dark and Terrible Dreams - 2:08
5. Voices of Fornburg - 2:03
6. Fury of the Northmen - 2:15
7. In the Splendor of the Moon - 4:36
8. Ragnarok - Twilight of the Gods (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:15
9. Father of Gods - 2:19
10. The Fate of East Mercia - 3:21
11. Asgard Hall of the Æsir (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:28
12. Thunderstone - 1:51
13. The Tree of Life - 2:31
14. The Sceptered Isle - 2:13
15. Land of the Northern - 2:47
16. The Bearded Axe (feat. Einar Selvik) - 2:51
17. Sigurd's Choice - 2:00
18. Wave Walker - 2:40
19. Duals on the Cloak - 2:17
20. In the Twilight of Peace - 2:00
21. New People, Old Empires - 2:59
22. Jarls, Karls, and Thralls - 2:00
23. Locate the Sun - 2:23
24. Ravensthorpe - 2:43
25. Odin's Plunder - 2:41
26. Ambush by Cutthroats - 1:54
27. Trust the Currents - 2:33
28. Viking Blood, English Veins - 1:49
29. Finding Fenrir - 1:15
30. Carry Me to Valhalla - 3:01
31. The Guardian - 1:33
32. Open Sky's Door - 3:01
33. Blood Red Sails - 2:16
34. Uncharted Waters - 3:05
35. Blood Tide - 2:19
36. Mystic Runes - 0:56
37. Traders and Raiders - 2:33
38. The Swarming - 2:54
39. Saxon Blood - 2:18
40. Cheating Death - 1:59
41. Contrary Winds - 1:54
42. Eivor's Revenge - 2:20
43. Strike Forth into the Thorns and Brambles - 2:40
44. All Things Must End - 2:05
45. Storm of Terror - 2:44
46. Raven of the Wind - 2:57
47. Sea Thieves - 1:27
48. To the Next World - 2:25
49. A Murder of Two - 2:39
50. Rivers and Fjords - 1:07
51. Raids of Rage - 2:37
52. Knowledge of the Birds - 2:36
53. Celestial Dreams - 2:18

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Sons of the Great North

1. Out of the North - 3:49
2. The Bounteous Earth - 3:15
3. Absence of Light - 3:05
4. Silent Ambush - 3:04
5. Kingdom of Wessex - 3:39
6. Nightfall in Wessex - 3:50
7. The End of The World - 2:42
8. Leofrith's Honor - 2:01
9. East Anglia on Horseback - 2:16
10. Bifröst - 3:00
11. Visions on a Mountain Peak - 1:56
12. Son of Fjord - 4:15
13. Unearthing - 2:03
14. Shadow-Walker - 2:26
15. Holmgang - 1:36
16. The Frozen North - 3:08
17. Fulke's Destiny - 2:04
18. Unharmed Go Forth - 2:46
19. Nótt - 2:42
20. The Hidden Truth - 2:05
21. Animus Anomaly - 3:39
22. Kingdom of East Anglia - 5:36
23. Encounter in the Woodlands - 2:31
24. The Well of Wyrd - 2:45
25. Jotunheim - 2:28
26. Cordelia's Vengeance - 2:39
27. Clouds Over Northumbria - 3:40
28. The Wanderer - 2:15
29. Spirit of the Raven - 2:09
30. Closing In on the Kill - 1:53
31. Raids and Pillage - 3:37
32. Rued vs Oswald - 1:37
33. Plains of East Anglia - 3:05
34. Sons of the Great North - 2:45
35. The Helm of Awe - 1:59
36. Valhalla Nights - 2:18
37. Return to Norway - 3:15
38. The Norse Giants - 2:22
39. Beserker - 2:59
40. Arcane Memories - 3:21
41. Leaving Valhalla - 1:32
42. Goodwin's Honor - 2:05
43. Reflections in East Anglia - 4:28
44. Sunstones - 2:25
45. Peak of the Mountains - 2:57
46. Alpha Animals - 2:19
47. Dagr - 3:09
48. Loki's Return - 1:42
49. The Present - 2:44
50. Ezio's Family - Ascending to Valhalla (feat. Einar Selvik) - 3:54

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Weft of Spears

1. Traust Ok Svikráð - Trust And Treachery - 4:44
2. Hrafnakall - The Raven's Call - 4:51
3. Ár Skal Rísa - Warriors Rise Early - 2:05
4. Söngr Lögsóta - Song Of The Seahorse - 3:14
5. Rauða Spjör - Red Spears - 2:56
6. Til Vinskapar - To Friendship - 4:28

Collector's Edition

While marketed as an "original soundtrack", the Collector's Edition disc was actually a compilation of the first two announced EPs, with the sole difference being that the track order was rearranged from that of their original releases. When the albums shipped out, a number of them had incorrect back covers with all of the track names marked out with the letter ⟨X⟩. When players alerted Ubisoft to the error, the company added an exclusive mount skin called the "Varangian Horse" that was redeemable through Ubisoft Connect as compensation.

1. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Main Theme - 3:15
2. Kingdom of Wessex - 3:39
3. The Sceptered Isle - 2:13
4. Hrafnsmál - The Words of the Raven - 5:20
5. Out of the North - 3:49
6. Holmgang - 1:36
7. Asgard - Hall of the Æsir - 3:28
8. Hausbrjótr - Skullcrusher - 5:15
9. Son of Fjord - 4:15
10. Odin's Plunder - 2:41
11. The Well of Wyrd - 2:45
12. The Tree of Life - 2:31
13. The Guardian - 1:33
14. Vígahugr - Lust for Battle (skaldic version) - 2:20