Prominent Themes: Assassin's Creed Series

The Assassin's Creed series has some incredible themes that I am astounded by. They easily are the best in video game history.

Jesper Kyd composed the music for the first and second as well as Brotherhood. I honestly am not a huge fan of this music, but it does in fact fit the period of the game very well, which take place during the middle ages/Renaissance period.

Jesper Kyd returned for Revelations, which spiked my interest. This music is much better, especially since Lorne Balfe was brought on to work on the multiplayer content. Generally, high expectations are put on film composers, so being a composer mostly for films, Lorne Balfe lived up to my expectations on his work for this score.






He must have done a good job because he returned by himself for the third installment. This is where the music begins to get really good. The theme that Balfe set in the beginning of this score is just amazing.



A small project that came with Assassin's Creed III for handheld gaming systems is Liberation. Winifred Phillips scored this game and met the high quality sound that Lorne Balfe put on the III name in the series.



Brian Tyler scored the fourth major installment named Black Flag. This game takes place around the same time and place of Pirates of the Caribbean when pirates were one of the biggest threats. The score is very calming and does not reach the high intensities that is common with Brian Tyler. It does its job very well, making me think of the ocean and the Caribbean. I enjoyed this entire score from beginning to end.





The next two installments come together: Rogue and Unity. Rogue was scored by Elitsa Alexandrova while Chris Tilton (Volume 1), Sarah Schachner (Volume 2), and Ryan Amon (Bonus Tracks) scored Unity. To start, Rogue has a very well written theme that portrays the frigid temperatures in the new American colonies. Chris Tilton takes on the violent French Revolution with fast spiccato and impressive intensity. The interesting thing about these two is that there are slight hints of the theme from Rogue  hidden inside some of the music to Unity. Chris Tilton's music is by far better than the other music produced in Rogue and Unity.




The latest installment of the series takes place during the Romantic Period in London, titled Syndicate. While I do believe that Austin Wintory's music for this game does fit the setting perfectly, the overpowering violin at times can get a bit obnoxious. Of course, this is probably the style of music that was popular at the time, so I still applaud his work, just not so much outside of the game.