Chase Bethea and the Sound of Aground: Composing Beyond the Expected

In modern games, soundtracks by design function in a way that subtly guides emotion and storytelling. Deepening our immersion without ever pulling focus from the experience.

But Chase Bethea doesn’t compose this way.

His soundtracks don’t fade quietly into the edges of a game. They are designed to be heard, they heighten the experience and call for replay on repeat long after you’ve beat the level and the game. They linger long after the screen goes dark.

For many players, that lingering feeling is the point. Games aren’t just entertainment, they are an escape, a place to step away from the weight of the world. And the music is the bridge that takes the player to their own flow state interlude.

This approach is at the heart of Aground, a game whose evolving world demanded a score just as fluid and groundbreaking.

Building a Sound Without a Blueprint

When Bethea first encountered Aground during its early prototype, there was no clear path for the soundscape. Instead of forcing one, he let the ideas surface gradually.

“I couldn’t come up with anything at first,” he says. “Then certain things started to come to me in pieces.”

That patience became part of the process. The game’s hand-crafted art, built entirely from scratch, pushed Bethea to create something equally distinctive. The result wasn’t immediately embraced.

After finishing the main theme, the initial reaction from the developer was uncertain. But after spending more time with it, the response changed and was a perfect fit.

For Bethea, that delayed connection isn’t a flaw, it’s the point.

“Sometimes my music has to sit with you,” he explains.

Many of the best albums of all time, often a follow-up to the first hit album released by an artist have to marinate. They become your favorite albums and the initial, assigned sound while still appreciated, starts to feel separate with a new expanded, open-minded horizon.

Music Shaped by Life as Much as Design

The development of Aground stretched across several years, and Bethea’s personal life unfolded alongside it. Moves, setbacks, the California wildfires and loss all left their mark on the soundtrack.

“I lost my great-grandmother; there’s a song attributed to her,” he shares.

That emotional layering gives the score a depth that goes beyond gameplay. It’s not just reactive, it’s reflective. The music carries both the evolution of the game and the evolution of the person creating it.

In many ways, that story reaches further back.

Bethea’s first experience with gaming began with an Intellivision console he found tucked under a bed in his grandmother’s spare room. At the time, she told him it was a fax machine. But when he hooked it up and played Dragonfire, something clicked.

That small, accidental moment set everything in motion.

His grandmother has since passed, but her presence remains embedded in his work. During the creation of Aground, he experienced that loss in real time. The grief didn’t stay separate from the music, it became part of it. A profound expression of the soul, where grief arrives in restless tides, carried through the very frequencies of the soundtrack waves.

What began under her roof came full circle in a project shaped, in part, by her absence.

Breaking Rhythm to Refresh the Player

One of Bethea’s defining traits is his willingness to push the boundaries beyond conventional structure. While many game soundtracks rely on familiar time signatures, he actively experiments with rhythm, especially in moments like boss battles.

“I got bored with what I was hearing,” he says. “So I wanted to push it further.”

Drawing from his deep music theory studies and influences outside traditional game composition, Bethea uses shifting meters and unexpected timing to disrupt player expectations. The goal isn’t complexity for its own sake, it’s engagement.

“It refreshes the ear,” he explains.

Even players who don’t understand the theory can feel the difference.

A Composer Between Eras

Bethea’s technical approach mirrors his creative one: flexible and wide-ranging. Starting with early tools like Fruity Loops 3, he now works primarily in professional environments like Nuendo, while still using retro trackers and handheld systems when a project calls for it.

“It depends on what the project needs,” he says.

That adaptability allows him to move seamlessly between modern orchestration scoring and retro-inspired sound design. He has forged a path that bridges generations of game audio without losing authenticity.

Preserving More Than Just Games

Outside of composing, Bethea is deeply invested in game preservation. With a personal collection of hundreds of titles and years spent restoring consoles, he sees gaming history as something worth maintaining, not just consuming.

“These are multiple forms of art,” he says.

That mindset carries into his own work. His push to release Aground on vinyl isn’t just about format, it’s about permanence in an increasingly digital industry.

“A server shutting down isn’t going to stop a record from playing,” he notes.

Ready to take the stage for live performance and with a vinyl release on the horizon, his music is stepping out of the headphones and into the room. He’s transforming what was once a solitary, digital experience into a raw, shared heartbeat, one that only a live crowd can create. He’s bringing a community together.

Influence Without Imitation

While rooted in game culture, Bethea’s influence extends far beyond it. Growing up on hip-hop and R&B, he draws inspiration from producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes, artists known for rhythm-driven innovation.

That influence is especially clear on an album like Sunken Stones, where layered percussion and Caribbean-inspired elements create something that feels grounded, magical, and unexpected. It leaves you feeling transported through the realization that music is time travel through storytelling and memory.

“I wanted to write pirates from the Caribbean, not Pirates of the Caribbean,” he says.

It’s a subtle distinction, but it reflects a larger philosophy: authenticity over imitation.

From Composer to Performer

For Bethea, the work doesn’t end when the soundtrack is finished. Increasingly, he’s bringing his music to live audiences, treating game scores as performance pieces rather than static recordings.

“As a musician, you make the album and then you perform it,” he says.

His shows blend improvisation with gameplay visuals, turning familiar tracks into something new each time. It’s part of a growing movement pushing video game music into broader cultural recognition.

A Lasting Presence in a Temporary Medium

In an industry where games can disappear as quickly as they launch, Bethea is thinking about longevity. Whether through physical releases, live performances, or his upcoming book, his focus is on creating work that endures.

“I want my music to exist in something people can hold,” he says.

It’s a simple idea, but it carries weight.

Because in the end, his work isn’t just about scoring a soundtrack for a game. It’s about capturing something lasting. Giving us space for incubation. Memories and emotions; the gift of quiet moments that shape us.

And in that space between the fleeting and the permanent, Chase Bethea is composing something that stays with us.