Usually when I’m working on the news shift I use one of those low-fidelity YouTube mixes to keep my ears distracted. Today, however, I am thinking of trying something a little more Nordic. This week, a snippet of the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla soundscape hit Spotify in the form of the Out Of The North EP, a mix of seven song tracks, flutes, and war drums to study / relax / attack settlements in East Anglian.
While it’s not a full original score (which I’ll be around sometime after release I guess), Out Of The North’s short tracklist gives us an early glimpse of Valhalla’s rustic Nordic soundscape. It’s also a nice and wide mix, from Holmgang’s buzzing and thunderous battle riff to the pious strings and wailing chorus of The Sceptered Isle.
The EP features songs by Danish composer Jesper Kydd, whose musical styles last played the Ubisoft stabs in Assassin’s Creed Revelations, and Sarah Schachner, who contributed scores for Assassin’s Creed Unity and Origins along with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare from last year .
But Ubi also got into Norwegian artist Einar Selvik, founder of the Norwegian “musical constellation” Wardruna, a group that uses ancient instruments to reinterpret old Norse myths and poems as contemporary clues. If you’re a TV buff, you might recognize his Viking work. Proper, then, that you will be helping to score a great open world Viking fight.
Out Of The North is available to stream on Spotify right now, and there’s a list of other places to buy and stream the EP courtesy of producers Lakeshore Records. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla goes on sale on November 15. You will be able to buy it from the Epic Games Store and Uplay for £ 50. It would be negligent not to mention that in recent weeks we have seen the expulsion of several prominent Ubisoft executives following allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, including the “abandonment” of Valhalla’s creative director , Ashraf Ismail.
