Assassin’s Creed Valhalla becomes the first video game to win a Grammy

This year the Grammy awards They have had an important novelty: a specific category for video game soundtracks. At the end of last year the nominees were announced, a total of five titles competing for this first and special award. Finally, during the gala delivery of the 65 Grammy Awards, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla became the first video game to take home one of these statuettes.

Specifically, the awarded soundtrack has been that of The Dawn of Ragnarokan expansion that was released in 2022 and whose music was composed by Stephanie Economou. She has been awarded for the creation of this soundtrack, and in her thank-you speech she has highlighted the importance of this award: “I feel honored, especially since this is the first year that this category exists, so It is important and I feel very validated for this community and I am beyond grateful to be here,” she said during the gala.

This award has also gone viral in the last few hours for a presenter error, who misread the name of the Ubisoft video game. You can see the moment below:

The five nominees for the first Grammy Award for video game soundtrack

The music that Economou composed for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok compete with other soundtracks such as that of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (composed by Richard Jacques), Call of Duty: Vanguard (composed by Bear McCreary), Old World (composed by Christopher Tin) and Aliens: Fireteam Elite (composed by Austin Wintory).

The #GRAMMYs have introduced a Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media category. @StephEconomou talks about her nomination for #AssassinsCreedValhalla.

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Good luck, Stephanie! 🎉@UbisoftMusic @RecordingAcad pic.twitter.com/dvLFNP3sOX— Ubisoft Montreal (@UbisoftMTL) February 4, 2023

As a curious fact, it is the second time Austin Wintory is nominated for a Grammy for a video game: back in 2013, he opted for one of these awards for his work on Journeyalthough it was not a category of its own for video games but for “best soundtrack for a visual medium”, so it competed with films like The Dark Knight Rises either Millennium: Men Who Didn’t Love Womenwhich was the one that finally took the prize.

Already last yearthe Grammys got a little closer to video games when they rewarded an orchestra of covers that, among their repertoire, included a song by Kirby Superstar.