Assassin's Creed Valhalla is bringing back the composer of the Ezio trilogy
Jesper Kyd returns for the first time since Revelations
The musical composer of Assassin's Creed's Ezio trilogy is returning for Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
As spotted by Nibel, a listing for Valhalla on the German Ubisoft store reveals that Jesper Kyd is composing music for the game, along with Sarah Schachner. Kyd has been a prominent video game composer for two decades, having worked on everything from the original Hitman to Borderlands to State of Decay 2. His compositions for the first Assassin's Creed games helped define the franchise's musical identity, though he hasn't been credited as a main composer on any game in the series since 2011.
Kyd worked on the overall soundtracks for each main Assassin's Creed game up through Revelations, including creating some of his most famous songs for Assassin's Creed 2. Kyd composed Ezio's Family, which has become a recurring musical motif throughout the rest of the franchise. Even if you jumped on board Assassin's Creed with later games like Assassin's Creed: Origins, you've probably still heard a version of it.
Sarah Schachner is also returning to Assassin's Creed after previously composing for Black Flag, Unity, and Origins, each of which had some fantastic music of their own. The two veteran game composers are joined by Einar Selvik, a Norwegian black metal drummer turned Norse folk music revivalist who is working on original compositions for the game.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is set to arrive on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X in time for holiday 2020. We got our first look at Assassin's Creed Valhalla gameplay in a trailer last week, though it was mostly in-game cinematics.
Check out what we're most excited to see in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
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I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.