Musician Sarah Schachner is one of the best-known composers working in the video game world. After all, she’s been behind the music for some top-notch video games such as Assassin’s Creed Origins and other games in Ubisoft’s series.
Schachner is also renowned for her work on Activision’s Call of Duty series, having worked on the series since 2011. But now it seems that the veteran composer is moving away from the franchise, as she’ll no longer be composing music for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or its Battle Royale spin-off Warzone, as she recently announced on Twitter (via IGN).
“Over the past couple of months the working dynamic with the audio director has become increasingly challenging and I don’t see any path forward”, said Schachner in a tweet.
Also, when asked by a fan about the release date for the Modern Warfare 2 soundtrack by a fan, Schachner simply responded that she has “no control over these things”, which seems logical taking into account she’s seemingly severed ties with Activision’s franchise (for the time being at least).
Many of you have been asking about the MWII soundtrack release.
Here is my statement regarding that: pic.twitter.com/UEqgpCTjUg— Sarah Schachner (@SarahSchachner) November 3, 2022
It appears the audio director Schachner mentions in her tweet must have been something of a jerk to work with (he’s named as Stephen Miller in a Variety report of the matter). Although of course there are always two sides to each story, and without hearing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s audio director version of events it’s impossible to know for sure what went wrong here.
The American composer gave some clues in her tweet though, saying that “while I don’t have any control over how the music is presented in-game, what will be released on the soundtrack is not my artistic intent in regards to mixing and mastering”, suggesting how sour her relationship with the game’s audio director must have been…
Read more: Sarah Schachner is behind Assassins Creed Origins’ ancient Egyptian music
Nonetheless, it’s clear that Sarah Schachner is one of the most talented composers working on video games these days. She’s also composed the soundtrack for recent films like Prey, and it’s almost a certainty will be hearing her music in many more games in the future.
It remains to be seen, though, whether Schachner will return to Call of Duty someday, even if it’s clear her music has helped make the series a success, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 shattering series’ records recently.