Chivalry 2 is now less than a month away, and with the game drawing nearer, fans are slowly starting to learn more about it. Although the recent closed beta gave many a chance to try the game firsthand, others are still waiting for their chance to return to the thrilling battlefield of the Chivalry franchise. Game Rant recently had the opportunity to interview J.D. Spears, the game's composer and leading force behind its impressive soundtrack. Spears shares a ton of valuable insight during the interview about how his own music fits into the game and even goes on to talk about certain gameplay elements as well.
Although Spears has been in the music industry for some time now, Chivalry 2 is his first big project in the world of video game music. If the game's impressive soundtrack is anything to go off of, it certainly won't be his last. In the interview below, he answers many questions relating to the game's music, his composition process, the gameplay itself, and more.
Q: Hello, my name is Anthony Puleo. I'm a Staff Writer here at Game Rant. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. To start things out, could you introduce yourself and give a brief summary of what you do?
J.D. Spears: Hey Anthony. My name is J.D. Spears and I’m a composer for video games, film, and television.
Q: Aside from Chivalry 2, what other projects have you worked on? Where else might our readers have heard your work?
Spears: Chivalry 2 is my biggest project to date, however I have written a lot of library music that has ended up in everything from The Daily Show to American Pickers. I also have a great audience on my YouTube channel where I do covers. I started my musical journey at a very early age when my parents recognized my ability to memorize lyrics and carry a tune. I grew up in Texas, so I grew up on classic country music. As a child I went from performing in local variety shows to eventually moving to Branson, MO where I performed with lots of country music legends such as Loretta Lynn.
As I got older I was in various bands etc, but I eventually became very focused on my love of film music. That combined with my lifelong love of video games caused me to shift my focus to learning everything I could about writing music for media. I love working on films, but games were always the goal for me. After roughly a decade of learning and scoring everything I could get my hands on, I am thankfully involved in my first big game project in Chivalry 2! I am also currently scoring an upcoming documentary called “Pencil Test”, which is about the history and process of hand-drawn animation. It features tons of animation legends and is narrated by Ming-Na Wen.
Q: How did you get involved with Chivalry 2?
Spears: I got the opportunity to send a demo pitch for Chivalry 2 in 2018. I had done lots of smaller stuff and I was really struggling with getting my foot in the door with games in particular. I was so excited for the opportunity. I sent my pitch and they thanked me and we moved on. I honestly didn’t think I had gotten the gig, but I was thankful that I was getting some pitches under my belt at least. When I found out that they wanted to hire me I was floored. Working on this game has been a giant opportunity and learning experience rolled into one, and I’m so thankful that Torn Banner saw something in that pitch.
Q: Were you familiar with the Chivalry franchise before working on the project?
Spears: Yes! I had friends who were really into Chivalry. However, I’m mainly a console gamer so I didn’t have a ton of personal experience with the first game.
Q: The score itself is full of emotion. How much of the game do you get to see when writing your pieces?
Spears: I had a pretty constant flow of gameplay footage and artwork sent my way throughout the process. I also had access to the latest build so that I could jump in and experience the game for myself.
Q: Does this influence your composition process?
Spears: Absolutely. I think the emotional aspect, as you put it, comes from understanding what the game sounds like aside from the music. The sound of the battle itself is incredibly important to the experience in Chivalry 2. Swords clashing, battle cries, explosions, and even footsteps - it’s all very front and center and tends to have a percussive quality to it. Because of this I had to approach the music from the perspective of making sure it supported the rest of what was happening in the audio space - and that sort of led to some big soaring melody lines as they tended to sit nicely on top of everything else.
That’s not to say that there aren’t exceptions to this, there absolutely are. One of the combat cues is almost entirely percussion, for example. But almost every piece has elements of that approach. Torn Banner had a pretty clear vision for the music, in that they wanted it to have a very natural sound. Because of that we *mostly* stayed away from anything too hybrid or synthetic sounding. This made it even easier to make the decisions I mentioned above.
Q: What were your thoughts on the gameplay aspects of the beta?
Spears: I was able to participate in previous alpha testing, so it wasn’t my first proper Chivalry 2 experience. However, getting to experience it with this many new people (most of whom are playing the game for the first time) was something special. I’m a huge gamer, but I’ve never been particularly good at competitive multiplayer games. I love how Chivalry 2 embraces players like me. I am able to jump in and have fun no matter if I’m out-skilled or not. However, there is also this opportunity to dive deeper into its combat system and become an unstoppable force on the battlefield should you choose to do that. It has this great balance of really appealing to hardcore players without alienating casual ones.
Q: What was it like seeing players experiencing your music in the game for the first time?
Spears: It was a pretty amazing experience. When you work on something over the course of a couple of years, you tend to lose objectivity no matter how hard you try not to. So to see people reaching out to let me know they are enjoying the music is certainly a relief haha. I really enjoyed coming across clips of people streaming the beta where the music lines up just perfectly with something going on in the match - it’s hard to beat that feeling.
Q: Which piece was the hardest for you to compose?
Spears: Definitely the main menu theme. I think there is an inherent pressure to working on your first theme for your first big game. It’s the whole “no second chance at a first impression” thing. We went through several broad ideas for what the main theme would be, and then we iterated on the piece we chose several times before recording it in Budapest. So that’s probably the cue that I lost the most sleep over.
However, in terms of logistics the most challenging cues were for the two faction cutscenes that give you the history of the Agatha Knights and Mason Order respectively. Things had just started to shut down completely due to COVID. We had traveled to visit my in-laws just before the first stay-at-home orders were issued. We were stuck there, although we wouldn’t have felt comfortable traveling even if we could’ve. During this time we began work on these two scenes. So I set up a temporary work space , which was challenging haha. I wrote those two cues on a hobbled together mobile rig while quarantined at my in-laws’ place. I went back and polished them up a bit once it was time to turn in the final versions, but the majority of the work was done while away from my main setup.
Q: Which piece is your favorite on the soundtrack?
Spears: I’m not sure if I have a solid favorite, but there is a piece that plays later on in the main menu called “Feydrid’s Ghost”. It’s very chill and unlike much of the music on the soundtrack. It features two very talented soloists - Isaac Schutz on viola and Richard Moore on European hammered dulcimer. They both really bring a certain organic tension and beauty to the track that I think really works. I also have to mention “Duty and Honor”. It’s a fan favorite from the first game and it’s been so great to see the response to the Chivalry 2 version. The most fun to produce was an ambient track that plays after the Masons win a match. It contains the most random sounds - my wife’s voice, an accordion, a bowed banjo - all manipulated beyond recognition to create a dark and unsettling soundscape.
Q: Will players be able to buy the soundtrack for Chivalry 2?
Spears: I will be able to talk about this in greater detail as we get closer to launch - but yes a soundtrack album is in the works.
Q: How much control over the music will players have? Can they select which tracks they'd like to hear in game?
Spears: The music at the beginning of any given match is tied to the specific map you are playing on. From there the game randomly selects the combat music you will hear as the game progresses. Sometimes the music is triggered by the amount of time left, but in other cases dynamic versions of the music are triggered. These dynamic versions contain additional sections that allow the music to play for longer without repeating.
Q: You worked with Ryan Buckley on some of your pieces. How involved were you in the sound design of Chivalry 2 and in what way does that play into composing its music?
Spears: I feel like I accidentally answered this in an earlier question haha. Sorry! I wasn’t involved in the sound design but as I mentioned before it very much informed the decisions I was making in terms of instrumentation etc.
As far as Ryan goes, he was the composer on the first game. His music was a gigantic part of the experience in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, so we knew we wanted to make sure that we referenced his score when possible. A couple of the cues on this score are simply my versions of Ryan’s music (“Duty and Honor” for example) and because he is also the audio director at Torn Banner I was able to work more closely with him on these. However he very much encouraged me to do my own thing with them, and he was very helpful in terms of his direction and feedback.
Q: Do you have anything you'd like to share with our readers?
Spears: Please go and buy Chivalry 2 on June 8th! And stay tuned for news on the soundtrack. You can find me on twitter @spearssounds. Thank you so much for reading!
Chivalry 2 will be available on June 8th for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.