This year’s Grammy awards featured a fun first for video game fans. The Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games & Other Interactive Media is a mouthful, but it’s a new awards category that highlights video game soundtracks — something that’s long overdue!
The winner for the first ever Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games went to Stephanie Economou, who composed the soundtrack for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s most recent DLC, Dawn of Ragnarok, which released in 2022 (Assassin’s Creed Valhalla released in 2020).
In her acceptance speech, Economou recognized the importance of having this new category:
“And lastly, I just want to recognize all the people who fought tirelessly to bring this category of video game music into existence. Thank you for acknowledging and validating the power of game music.”
Valhalla’s score beat out Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Austin Wintory), Call of Duty Vanguard (Bear McCreary), Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Richard Jacques), and Old World (Christopher Tin), a Who’s Who list of some of the best composers in gaming!
Although the video game award category is new, this isn’t the first time a video game soundtrack (and composer) has won a Grammy. That honor went to Christopher Tin and Civilization 4’s “Baba Yetu,” in 2011, where it won Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). Several other video games have won at the Grammy’s in the years since, including Austin Wintory’s killer soundtrack for Journey in 2013.
