Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Adam Skorupa and Krzyzstof Wierzynkiewicz
Label: Namco Bandai Games
Release: 2012
Runtime: 73:01
Rating: 4.5/5
The fantasy series ‘The Witcher’ hardly needs an introduction for fans of the kind of video games that fall into the action role-playing genre, which has been hugely popular for at least two decades, usually set in an imaginary world. Both games released so far from the saga of the same name, “The Witcher” (2007) and “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings” (2011), while a third and reportedly final part of the current trilogy, titled “Wild Hunt”, is announced for 2014 and will come out for PC as well as both ‘fourth-generation’ consoles, were based on the novels of Andrzej Sapkowski, the Polish fantasy author who created a completely new and surprisingly original fantasy world, drawing mainly on Slavic and occasionally also on Germanic and Celtic mythology.
Characters and names from the Slavic world are one of the main trademarks of Sapkowski’s fantasy universe, so it’s no surprise that already while playing the first game in the saga, “The Witcher”, you come across a town called Maribor or a barmaid named Vesna. The literary and computer-game adventures of the white-haired mutant mercenary Geralt of Rivia, one of the last surviving ‘witchers’, whom various knightly-church orders almost entirely wiped out over decades of persecution, a hunter or mercenary for hire against all kinds of monsters found in the ‘bestiary’, won people over above all with their blurred moral picture and ‘gray’ characters, where the line between good and evil is very fragile and where every decision can fatally affect how events unfold and the different ending of the story/game.
Even though Geralt’s stories are pushed into a completely made-up world, it’s ruled by countless political intrigues between the rulers of the individual kingdoms, rival factions, scheming, betrayals and cruel murders in the fight for the throne, right in the middle of which the protagonist unwittingly lands, a relic of a fading age who, whenever he can, keeps dodging taking sides in any given conflict. In that, Sapkowski’s writing style strongly recalls the cult American author George R. R. Martin and his famous series of novels (later a TV series too), ‘A Game of Thrones’.
The second game in ‘The Witcher’ series, which came out in 2011 and was taken over by the Japanese publisher Namco Bandai after the Canadian publisher BioWare handed over the baton (the developers were once again the Poles, under the name CD Projekt Red), became even more successful than the first part upon release. Besides improved graphics, gameplay, dialogue, a more complex story and a huge world, it also served up some of the most ‘explicit scenes’ in video game history, which of course only boosted its notoriety and sales. In 2012 an expanded and improved version came out with the subtitle ‘Enhanced Edition’.
This special version of ‘The Witcher 2: Assasins of Kings’, aimed mainly at the series’ most devoted fans, came out with a bonus audio CD containing music from the game, written by the renowned Polish composers Adam Skorupa and Krzyzstof Wierzynkiewicz. Aleksander Grochocki played the guitar parts, while Iwona Malczewska contributed her operatic vocals. As is only fitting for an epic fantasy world ruled by gray and often gloomy shades of moral duality, with no black-and-white line between good and evil, their music is full of lavish, often pompous and melancholic symphonic arrangements, with room here and there for pastoral-tinged acoustic arrangements with folk-music elements. You could say it’s one long, chopped-up suite of mostly symphonic music, superbly fitted to the individual chapters that make up the pieces of the game’s story.
The pompous orchestral intro, “Introduction”, where operatic female vocal lines rule over dark string arrangements, creates a battle-ready ambience, and for a very brief moment you can even catch some scorching metal guitar phrases. You can spot the latter in smaller doses on individual tracks, which will make the album interesting for metalheads with a slightly ‘broader musical horizon’ too, while the gothic-spiced operatic female vocal harmonies that dominate “Assassins of Kings” are pretty much what you’d expect, especially when it comes to a work inspired by dark fantasy literature.
“A Nearly Peaceful Place”, with its pastoral-tinged pipes, brings a good dose of Celtic ambience into the orchestral ‘action’ between the symphonic arrangements, while the singer’s voice strongly recalls Enya, which means this soundtrack for the special edition of “The Witcher 2” will surely appeal to all fans of film music for spectacles in the vein of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, where the bulk of the music was written by the famous Canadian film composer Howard Shore. The ultra-dramatic “Easier Said Than Killed”, where a more aggressive ambience takes over, makes it clear that this is the action part of the chapter, or rather the story, about the ‘kingslayers’, while “Dwarven Stone Upon Dwarven Stone”, with its ethereal synth waves and gallant acoustic guitar chords, successfully conjures up the feel of a mysterious, long-forgotten world that today exists only in imagination.
The album is endlessly varied in ambience and captures the key moments of the game very well, which will of course be noticed first by everyone who has already played the expanded version of “The Witcher 2”. Plenty of people listening to the strikingly dark, acoustic-tinged “Through The Underworld” will remember fighting their way with Geralt through the underground halls of the dwarven mines, where grotesque creatures lurked at him from every side in the dark, creatures that turned out to be remarkably economical once dead, whether for brewing new potions from their enzymes or for selling individual biological parts to local merchants. On “A Coastal Cavern”, female choir vocalizations paired with mighty orchestral arrangements build incredible drama, while the epic “Into The Fields”, constantly swapping between warlike orchestral sections and subtle acoustic moments, is the very picture of grandeur. The same goes for the mystical and somewhat enigmatic “An Army Lying in Wait”, where the choir vocalizations in between only crank up the anticipation of a great battle.
“A Watering Hole in The Harbor” makes a fairly radical stylistic switch into folk music, with pipes and acoustic guitar creating an extremely relaxing ambience, while the completely re-arranged “Through The Underworld” motif strongly recalls the kind of music the aforementioned Howard Shore writes for Hollywood productions. It’s kind of expected that “The Path Of a Kingslayer”, which uses music to portray the mysterious assassin from the order of witchers, sounds as warlike and dramatic as possible, while “Within The Mist”, with its fragile piano arrangements, easily conjures up a mystical ethereality that’s constantly cut through by combative choir vocalizations.
Most of the atmosphere on “Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Enhanced Edition)” is distinctly melancholic, in keeping with the state of the typical Slavic soul, which is especially true of the ambience on “Regicide” and above all the prog-metal “The Wild Hunt”, where Grochocki, with brutal electric-guitar passages, briefly ‘shreds’ it up nicely in the style of a metal guitar soloist. The legend of the Wild Hunt plays a very important role in Geralt’s saga, since it was because of these airy phantoms of a long-dead ancient army that he lost his first great love and suffered long-term amnesia. “A Coastal City”, with its complex ambient waves, is marked by a much more serene mood, heralding Geralt’s arrival in the mysterious city by the river.
“Souls In Ruin” features strikingly dark choir vocalizations, while “A Quiet Corner” sounds like a heart-wrenching lament, which fits well with certain events in the story/game, where tragic moments are truly in abundance. “The Assassin Looms” is again a somewhat more warlike creation with ethno elements, where the acoustic guitar, while the pipes ring out, carries even a barely perceptible whiff of flamenco. “Dreary Stronghold”, with its masterful, pompous nature, adorned with lavish orchestral arrangements that spread a melancholic and mysterious mood, is on par with some of the best motifs from film spectacles.
“Howl Of The White Wolf”, with its fiery mix of symphonic and folk, again marks a sharply dramatic moment in the story, which nicely illustrates Geralt’s fight with the nekkers, grotesque monsters that resemble a kind of giant insect. “Sorceress”, where dramatic female operatic vocals once again take over as expected, could refer to several sorceresses from Geralt’s world, yet in the life of the ‘white wolf’ two sorceresses played the leading roles: his great, lost love from the literary world, the black-haired Yennefer, and later the red-haired Triss Merigold, who plays an important role mainly in the games. It’s only right that it all wraps up in the most pompous way possible, so it’s no surprise that “The End Is Never The Same” hits the mighty peak of the whole recording when it comes to blending pompous orchestral arrangements with subtle acoustic-guitar chords into an epic miniature. “Assassins Of Kings Theme” is exactly what its title says: a thoroughly re-arranged motif from the second track on the album.
It’s worth mentioning that the soundtrack for “The Withcer 2: Assassins of Kings” came out in several different, special and expanded editions. The special version you could get by pre-ordering the game contained a whopping 23 extra tracks, while the ‘Enhanced Edition’ version had a changed running order. Later, fans released an ultimate expanded version with a full 134 tracks and extra themes contributed by Marcin Pryzyblowicz and Michal Cielecki. That latter edition is of course meant for the biggest fanatics, who breathe and live for Sapkowski’s world of Geralt of Rivia.
The official soundtrack for “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Enhanced Edition)” easily sweeps listeners into the layered, mysterious world they got to know while playing the game of the same name, and it’s undoubtedly on par with the scores written for the most famous epic film spectacles. Even someone who has never played the game, or maybe still plans to, but is otherwise a fan of contemporary classical music with acoustic, pastoral and operatic elements, will no doubt enjoy listening to this record, although, at least on an emotional level, it’s much easier to relive for someone who has already finished Geralt’s fight in the second part of this superb epic fantasy saga.
Lineup
Adam Skorupa and Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz – composers, orchestral arrangements
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Aleksander Grochocki – guitar (tracks 03, 04, 13, 15, 17, 23)
Iwona Malczewska – vocals (tracks 01, 02, 04, 08, 19, 22)
Marcin Pryzyblowicz and Michal Cielecki – additional composers, additional orchestral arrangements on the expanded version of the soundtrack
Production
Adam Skorupa and Krzyzstof Wierzynkiewicz
Tracklist
1. Introduction
2. Assassins Of Kings
3. A Nearly Peaceful Place
4. Easier Said Than Killed
5. Dwaren Stone Upon Dwarven Stone
6. Through The Underworld
7. A Coastal Cavern
8. Into The Fields
9. An Army Lying In Wait
10. A Watering Hole In The Harbor
11. Through The Underworld
12. The Path Of a Kingslayer
13. Within The Mist
14. Regicide
15. The Wild Hunt
16. A Costal City
17. Souls In Ruin
18. A Quiet Corner
19. The Assassin Looms
20. Dreary Stronghold
21. Howl Of The White Wolf
22. Sorceress
23. The End Is Never The Same
24. Assassins Of Kings Theme
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