Jesper Kyd composed Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s soundtrack using 100-year-old instruments

polygon.com:

One of the longest-running game composers, Jesper Kyd has been producing bangers for over three decades, contributing to the Assassin’s Creed series, the Borderlands series, classic Genesis shooter Sub-Terrania, Gears of War, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and many others.

Speaking to Polygon below as part of our weeklong look at the crossover of games and music, Polygon FM, Kyd described his memories of the early days of game music on Commodore 64, his influences and process working on Assassin’s Creed games, and the importance of atmosphere when working on game music.

Polygon: Was there a game soundtrack or song that inspired you to pursue creating game music? Can you set the scene of what that felt like for you, and why the music was so effective?

Jesper Kyd: I fell in love with game music on the Commodore 64 back in 1985. Video game music was revolutionized on the Commodore 64. The analog sound chip inside the C64 allowed composers to achieve atmosphere and emotion, and a new music style was born, which today is known as chiptune or chip music. Favorite game soundtracks from back then were The Last V8, Parallax, Wizball, Mutants, Light Force, Warhawk, and many more.

Parallax included a 12-minute main title masterpiece by Martin Galway. Hearing that for the first time is probably the moment I fell in love with game music. The amount of soul and creativity added to what could easily have been a one-minute loop was so spirit awakening to me. I thought, “Here is someone going for it with everything they’ve got, and putting a piece of their soul into this music.” That became my mantra, and I have worked with this philosophy on my own music ever since. To capture the core essence of the game, while adding a piece of your own soul, that’s what I try to do when inventing new music styles for games.

When starting a new project, I don’t know how my music will blend with other styles — such as the Italian Renaissance for Assassin’s Creed 2 — until I actually start working