The Flight

The Flight, Joe Henson and Alex Smith

The Flight is a composer duo consisting of Joe Henson and Alex Smith who have worked on the soundtracks for several video games.

History

Early years

Joe Henson and Alex Smith began collaborating in 2005, after co-producing an album for Henson's band Seventhsun and realizing they had "a similar approach to life and wildly divergent musical tastes". They have since worked on soundtracks in the video game industry, including 2014's Alien: Isolation and 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn.

Assassin's Creed

In 2014, The Flight contributed to the multiplayer soundtrack of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. While Brian Tyler composed the entirety of the main game's soundtrack, the composing duo of The Flight did only 40 minutes of soudtrack for the multiplayer mode.

Later in 2018, they composed the soundtrack of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Differing from their last soundtrack work, The Flight requested as much visual information from the then-upcoming game as they could. The image that resonated with them the most was of the protagonist standing in front of Athens. The year beforehand, they composed the soundtrack to Horizon Zero Dawn. Unconsciously avoiding sounding like their previous work, the duo noted that themes of Odyssey differed greatly. Odyssey's themes included betrayal, vengeance and war, even describing it as a proper Greek tragedy.

On the creation of Odyssey's soundtrack, Henson and Smith started on the main themes, character themes, and antagonist themes, before moving onto creating music for the individual regions of Greece. The duo's favorite piece they composed was "The Legend of the Eagle Bearer". Additional assistance on the soundtrack included; Mike Georgiades on various stringed instruments, Renaud Ford playing the rebec, Emma Rohan on vocals for the main theme, with Rob Farrer and Joby Burgess on percussion. They also worked with George Strezov and the Sofia Session Choir in Bulgaria.

During the development of the Odyssey sountrack, the two composers were not permitted to play early builds of the game for inspiration, and so all they had to go on was the video captures sent to them from the Ubisoft music team. The only input from Ubisoft that they were given is the need for an Odyssey version of the track "Ezio's Family", now considered the main theme for the series. When they were eventually able to play, Henson played as Kassandra while Smith was Alexios.

Assassin's Creed works

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2014) Saba Island Santa Lucia Tampa Bay Prison La Havana Portobelo Saint Pierre Palenque Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018) Legend of the Eagle Bearer (Main Theme) The 300 Enter the Animus Odyssey (Greek version) Phoibe the Orphan Kephallonia Island Markos Revenge of the Wolves Barnabas Pirates, Thugs, And Bandits Assassin's Creed Conflict on the Seas The Shores of Megaris Athenian Fighters Korinth On the Battlefield Things Fall Apart Nikolaos's Fate The Secret Land of Apollo Conversations Guards of the Cult Delphi The Cult of Kosmos Leonidas Fallen Legendary Heirloom The Hills of Attika Sokrates Naxos Island Reunited Myrrine Ariadnes's Fate Forgotten Isle One-Eyed Monster The Messara Plain Kydonia Atlantis The Sacred Land of Artemis Sparta A Spartan Fight Brasidas Valley of the Two Kings Legendary Animals Ash Hills Labyrinth of Lost Souls The Minotaur Gortyn Athens, Birthplace of Democracy Phoibe's Fate Pandora's Cove Petrified Temple Medusa Mytilene Sanctuary of Apollo A Happy Family Passing the Torch Odyssey (Modern Version) (feat. Emma Rohan)

External links

• The Flight official website