Assassin’s Creed Symphonic Adventure LIVE Review "a three-hour extravaganza celebrating the music of Assassin’s Creed" 🎻🎹🎶 @AC_Symphonic #VideoGameMusic #VGM

A few weeks ago, @kingdomofcarts@kingdomofcarts and myself were lucky enough to head up to London from the Welsh branch of GF HQ to catch a three-hour extravaganza celebrating the music of Assassin’s Creed. Originally a show that began in Paris back in 2022, and has been sporadically making its way across Europe, with the folks at Overlook Events behind the magic. The next show is booked on 3rd May 2025, with more shows to be announced.

Heading up on the train, we checked into our hotel – after first checking out the Four Quarters arcade in The Elephant and Castle area of London and clocking back a couple of cocktails – and warmed up by blasting some of the Assassin’s Creed soundtrack as we got dressed in our hooded robes, tested our hidden blades, and did full-back tattoos on each other of Jesper Kyd’s visage.

I’d never been to the Southbank Centre, but the staff and setup were fantastic. Seated pretty centrally in the Royal festival Hall, it was a warm blend of respectful luxury in the setup, combined with a surprising sense of intimacy. Seating 2500, it felt unique in how it captured a sense of awe with closeness. The last show that I’d attended in this vein was the London Video Game Orchestra, but the full force of a full symphonic orchestra alongside a choir was quite overwhelming in the impact it has.

I wasn’t sure how the evening would play out, choosing to go in blind, I didn’t know what to expect – and so when Assassin’s Creed Origins’ Bayek of Siwa (Abubakar Salim) came out to host, it was met with rapturous applause. Salim was a passionate and personable host, and when he dropped into Bayek’s delivery for a second, it was an incredible moment, but not as incredible as when he let the audience know the fact that his experience on the Assassin’s Creed series led to him developing and releasing his own critically celebrated game, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU – it was a brief aside that somehow seemed perfect in capturing the impact, essence, and influence of the series. 

When the show began, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a chronological thing; with tracks flitting across the series, resulting in everything from sweeping epics through to jaunty ditties, soundscapes, choral pieces, and comedic sea shanties. Good. The musicianship was impeccable, and it was almost hypnotising to see the percussionists and auxiliary musicians darting about to their next musical cues. The choir were also astonishing, with incredible solo vocal performances filling the cavernous room, before effortlessly dropping into group performances that took the breath away. 

So rich was the experience that I genuinely felt myself getting quite emotionally swept up in it -  aiding this was the fact that snippets of the various tales were being projected on a crisp screen, expertly edited to allow the viewer to piece together the overall narrative of the game in hand in a short time. Admittedly, due to the fact that the series is an action video game, it did mean that it boiled down to three hours of viewing extreme violence, with myriad throat-slashing, stabbing and the like – with the occasional backstab. 

That said, it was an incredibly compulsive evening that resulted in us purchasing Assassin’s Creed Mirage during the interval. Whilst on the subject of purchases; there was a merch stand that sold badges, posters, clothing, and music boxes. We picked up a couple of items, swept up in the experience as we were, but our buys paled in comparison to the gentleman in front of us, who spent almost two hundred quid on goodies. I couldn’t see his face, but I’m pretty sure that his eyes were rolling back into his head in a quasi-sexual limbo of his own imagining. He. Was. KEEN.

As the concert neared its end, Salim returned before the encore and introduced two of the composers of Assassin’s Creed origins, who congratulated the musicians and amused themselves as they told the story of a night at the studio where they basically jammed and played songs as fast as they could, resulting in one of the tracks played tonight – which the resident bouzouki player had to tab and learn, much to their amusement. It was a great little story that pierced the veil of what can sometimes be a self-serious, po-faced series of games.

Getting to see the Assassin’s Creed Symphonic Experience was an absolute pleasure, professionally laid out and performed with uncanny precision. It was also epic in length, running as it did at almost three hours. A huge thumbs up from us at GF, and something I’d certainly recommend to fans of the game, as well as  music in general.

Assassin's Creed Symphonic Adventure (assassinscreedsymphonicadventure.com)