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Behind the Score:
Assassin's
Creed
Interview:
Jesper Kyd
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Assassin's Creed
Brotherhood Review | Assassin's
Creed 2 Review
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Assassin's Creed
Review
A rustle in the crowd, a
light breeze, a single
bloodstained feather
drifting from the
rooftops...there is no
shortage of evocative
imagery associated with
the Assassin's Creed
series. The recent release
of the series' third major
title, Assassin's Creed:
Brotherhood is a prime
opportunity to highlight
the music that underpins
the drama. In the story of
AC: Brotherhood, we return
to the story of Ezio, who
we met in the second game,
and whose exploits we
continue to experience
through the memories of
his modern ancestor,
Desmond Miles. But besides
the brotherhood of
assassins accompanying
Ezio, by his side is also
veteran game composer
JESPER KYD, whose creative
and memorable work
continues to be a
cornerstone of the series.
Join with us as we go with
them all BEHIND THE SCORE
OF Assassin's Creed. In
this edition:
- Interview with
composer Jesper Kyd
- Assassin's Creed
Brotherhood Game score
review
- Assassin's Creed II Game
score review
- Assassin's Creed Game
score review
- BONUS Coverage:
2007 Interview with Jesper
Kyd
Interview: Jesper Kyd (2010)
 MM
- Focusing on the original ASSASSIN'S CREED to start
with, what kind of direction did you receive to help
guide your approach to the music? Did you have very
specific guidelines or were you free to explore?
JESPER KYD - There were 3 main keywords I was
working with - Tragic (the tragic events of the
Crusades), War and Mysticism. As the music writing
progressed it became clear to me that mysticism
added such a unique flavor to the game that it
became a very important element in the score.
Mysticism also helped set the score’s mood and
atmosphere even further apart from other games.
There is also the Animus side to the game which
(though not featured that much in AC1) we still
wanted to make clear for the player. The escape
music was very much a collaborative effort with the
team looking for something sci-fi during the escape
scenes. In AC1 during the escape, this is where the
Animus simulator is the most fragile or maxed out
and the screen glitches the most etc. We wanted to
emphasize this with music and so the sci-fi music is
most apparent during these sequences. While the
score is rooted in Middle Eastern ideas, I was very
careful not to use actual Middle Eastern music
scales (except for a couple of cues in Damascus). We
didn’t want the score to be a traditional Middle
Eastern sounding score.
Review:
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
 The
Legacy Continues
Review by Marius Masalar
After wowing audiences with the
transformative improvement from
ASSASSIN’S CREED to ASSASSIN’S CREED
II, JESPER KYD is called upon yet
again to impress, this time for
ASSASSIN’S CREED: BROTHERHOOD.
Though it is technically an entirely
separate title, AC: BROTHERHOOD does
not occur in an entirely different
time period and environment;
instead, it is a continuation of the
story of Ezio from the second game
as he gathers a brotherhood of
assassin’s to his cause and seeks
his revenge against the mighty
Borgia family.
Likewise, the score fails to
distinguish itself as notably as the
second did from the first, which is
understandable considering it is
essentially just an extension of the
material that KYD produced for
ASSASSIN’S CREED II. What
BROTHERHOOD does do is turn up the
intensity and drama. It is a
polished and coherent extension,
albeit one that lacks something of
the flair and personality of its
predecessors.
Review: Assassin's Creed II
 Coming
of Age
review by Marius Masalar
I don't know about you, but every time I see a white
feather on the street nowadays, I look over my
shoulder in the hopes of glimpsing some cloaked
figure as he dispatches any nearby Templars.
ASSASSIN’S CREED, Ubisoft's 2007 action platformer,
is of course responsible for this strange behaviour.
But while the first game was a compelling proof of
concept, it wasn't until the sequel came out that
the series truly came into its own. Meet ASSASSIN’S
CREED II, all grown up.
Critics of the first game will argue that the
original title's story was only sporadically
interesting and left the majority of the game to
wallow in a thread of repetitive and uninteresting
quests, all leading up to virtually identical
assassination missions. Thankfully, Ubisoft has
upped the ante significantly this time around,
introducing us to Ezio, a rambunctious and instantly
likable youth who actually has a personality and
whose experiences in the beginning of the game
believably justify his progression from teenager to
assassin. The much larger variety of quest types,
the fleshed out and well-acted characters (including
some surprising cameos from history), and the
vibrantly realized and detailed landscapes of
Renaissance Italy all come together to form a
package that finally feels like a complete game and
not just a giant sandbox of murder and eagle
metaphors.
Review: Assassin's Creed
 A
New Breed of Hitman
Review by Marius Masalar
There is a rather small list of composers whose work
I’m always looking forward to hearing more of.
JESPER KYD is one of them, and the reason is not
that I am confident that I’ll always enjoy his work;
I look forward to it because I can trust him to
reliably try new and interesting things and create
some truly remarkably stylistic fusions. In November
of 2008, audiences were first introduced to the
ASSASSIN’S CREED franchise with its first title. The
historical fantasy action game soon won over critics
with its engrossing gameplay acrobatics and stylish,
complicated mood. One of the key elements in
establishing that mood was the edgy score from
Hitman veteran composer, JESPER KYD.
The score begins very strongly, with “City of
Jerusalem” (1). There is a consistent setup to the
music on album, and it carries over into the later
ASSASSIN’S CREED game scores as well, and that is
that for each city there tends to be at least one
‘peaceful’
theme and then one ‘combat’, or ‘active’
cue for when the tension is higher. This first cue
is the peaceful one for the city of Jerusalem and
offers an excellent introduction to KYD’s eclectic
musical palette. Ethnic plucked string instruments
and woodwinds combine with harp, percussion, and
heavily processed choral vocals to produce a rich
soundscape. One of the strongest elements is the
quiet chanting of monks, synthetically processed for
a bit more edge.
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