Assassin's Creed Valhalla won a Grammy, but had its name absolutely butchered in the process.
Last night at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in LA, Assassin's Creed Valhalla was honored with the Score Soundtrack For Interactive Media award. That sounds great, but what sounds slightly less great is comedian Randy Rainbow mercilessly butchering the pronunciation of "Valhalla."
can’t stop laughing at this guy announcing the Grammy win for Assassin's Creed Valhalla pic.twitter.com/vz9bTVZFTXFebruary 5, 2023
Technically, then, "Assassin's Creed Vallaha" took home the award for Interactive Media, and not the latest entry in Ubisoft's long-standing historical series. This is probably a case where the presenter should've checked over the names of the titles he'd have to pronounce before taking to the stage of the world's biggest music awards.
In actual fact though, it's not Assassin's Creed Valhalla that won the Grammy award, but its Dawn of Ragnarok DLC, for which Stephanie Economou scored the expansion and received the prestigious award. Sarah Schachner, Jesper Kyd, and Einar Selvik were the composing trio for the base game, but Economou took the helm to score Assassin's Creed Valhalla's big expansion.
Over on Reddit though, there's a lot of confusion over the games that were nominated for the Grammy. Aside from Assassin's Creed, the nominees were Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Call of Duty: Vanguard, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and Oddworld. This bunch has struck the Reddit community as a slightly strange choice, given all the games that released over the past 12 months or so.
This was the first time the Grammys hosted a category for "Interactive Media," and here's hoping it isn't the last time. We can't wait to see what pronunciation horrors unfold at the ceremony in the years to come. Or, you know, the presenters could familiarize themselves with the nominees beforehand.
Check out our new games 2023 guide for a look over all the games set to launch throughout the coming year.
