The full list of 2023 Grammy nominations was announced earlier today, with Best Soundtrack for a Video Game and Other Interactive Media featuring some surprising names, including:
Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Austin Wintory) Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn Of Ragnarok (Stefani Economou) Call Of Duty: Vanguard (Bear McCreary) Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy (Richard Jacques) Old World (Christopher Tin)
Of course, 2023 marks the first Grammy for video game music, meaning one of these games will be going home with a historic award. The Best Soundtrack for #VideoGame Soundtracks is LONG overdue. This is definitely a change I’m very happy to see being added this year. #GRAMMYs — Kira Grunenberg (@shadowmelody1) November 15, 2022 Video game music has been eligible for Grammy nominations since 1999, with Civilization Baba Yetu’s theme winning Best Instrumental Arrangement in 2011 and Journey’s soundtrack earning a nomination in 2012. “Underrated and underrated,” EA music president Steve Schnur explained in an interview with Variety. “Not only for the level of quality, but also for the magnitude of the success, how important it is to the next generation of music lovers. We needed to convince the powers that be that this music stands on its own and deserves to be judged against each other.” Now, after years of lobbying by game studios, the Grammys are getting their own video game category, with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy looking like a strong favorite. Aliens: Fireteam Elite Screenshots Although judging by some of the other nominations, it wasn’t exactly a good year. IGN’s review of Aliens: Fireteam Elite gave it a 7/10 and said, “Aliens: Fireteam Elite does enough right to make it worthwhile for a trio of co-op shooter fans who’d rather fight hordes of aliens than the usual zombies. Between the excellent weapons, classes and enemy types, and some great nostalgic hints of what came before, it’s a must play if you like this series. The caveats, of course, are having to put up with repetitive scenarios and some excruciatingly long missions. Aliens: Fireteam Elite may not be a triumphant victory, but it’s far from game over, man.” Which one will take home the first Grammy for Best Music Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media? For now, we’ll have to wait and see… but it looks like this class is off to a very strange start. Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
