Sound Design in Modern Games
Sound Design in games allow for several emotional and impactful connections for the player to engage as they slay some aliens, crash some cars, or spam that quick time button to finally end the mission. It’s been said incredible sound design, which includes soundtracks, SFX, ambience, and anything else audio related, can carry a game from mundane to breathless.
Today I want to highlight a few games that deliver on audio experiences that offer something for the player. Whether that’s an epic score that compounds the current moment to new heights, to more intricate sound design decisions that really add to the overall atmosphere of the world.
Score
We’ll start with Destiny 2. Destiny 2 had a highlight song that shone above the rest of the OST, and Michael Salvatori’s brilliance really carries this game to new heights, and I’m not just talking about that skybox. Journey, featuring the Kronos Quartet, has three distinct parts. This song is highlighted in two different levels, one near the beginning where we’ve lost our battle against Ghaul, and one at the end where we make the final assault.
We have the intro, coupled by the initial scene as our guardian discovers the ensuing carnage and savagery the Cabal rake across the city. This soft, depressed tone marches us forward as we finally realize: “We’ve lost”.
It then breaks into the second part, where the drums come into play. The accompanying percussion turns the same heartbreaking melody into a trial of redemption. We’re still alive, for some reason. Our Ghost has found us. Our city was taken. A resistance is forming, the Vanguard is scattered, but it’s not the end.
It’s this bubbling realization that we do have work to do. And as the resident chosen one, it’s on you, bub. The final act of the song is my favorite part. This is where the woodwinds and horns begin their rise in power and vigor. And it’s here where one crucial scene displays real moment brilliance. It’s the final push. The last dash for the tower.
As you sprint across the broken city racing towards the Vanguard commanders, other guardians making the push with you, all add to the power the soundtrack delivers, making the level feel complete. It’s the rare instance where one song carries two levels so well, we can’t help but remain in awe.
Next, is the incredible Nier Automata.
A game with a genuinely memorable score, there is one song that stands out, due the way the score marries the atmosphere, mechanics, and lore of the moment. The boss battle with the opera singer, Beauvoir aka Simone. Still early into the game, the opera boss provides a score that amplifies the environment and mood of the fight, but not in the context of the 2B or 9S.
I’d argue, rather, in the context of Simone herself. This endless pursuit of beauty she chases for so long, and so vehemently that it consumes her will, echoes in the songs sad, desperate tone. I’ll need to highlight certain areas of the song that really push this into perspective.
First, the start of the song, this choir, starts with a set of searing chords that signals despair, this constant struggle, that you have stumbled onto. Around 1:42, this theme echoes compounds once more, but with full gusto, vigor, and arching sadness that dominates the environment, rewrites the mood, and brings a tear to my eye.
Simone is not a pushover, she’s not someone who will take this lying down. She hasn’t given up, not in the slightest.
Her endless pursuit to continually chase this sense of beauty to have Jeanne fall in love with her, won’t be stopped by two robot ninjas cosplaying as gothic maids. And that’s just listening to the song standalone. In game, it leaves such an impact, that it highlights a well-designed boss. Multiple stages, varying attack patterns, lore released through gameplay that makes sense (9S hacking equals exposition on Simone’s struggle, and how her purpose has led her to her demise). There so much to unpack here you can do a whole video on it!
Design
Sound Design isn’t just the use of various SFX or neat editing tricks to add more to various set pieces or moment to moment gameplay. Sometimes, Sound design can be the core of the entire game. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice demonstrates the overall design decisions made to really take binaural audio to it’s fullest potential.
In dev diary 15, Ninja theory demonstrates the capabilities of binaural audio with a few demonstrations. Walking through the car park allows the listener to accurate place where what exists, to pinpoint levels of detail. Moving and whispering with the microphone engaged better illustrates the point Ninja Theory attempts to emulate with Hellblade.
This is where the clashing voices come into play. Dev diary 27 shows some of the decision that go into sound design. Binaural audio was almost ditched entirely due to its limited scope. However, by embracing the way binaural audio affects the listener, they pivoted the experience to focus more on the player, giving them a better sense of perspective as a ghost along for the ride.
It paid off.
It also led to the inclusion of the audio based level, where the player only has the sounds of the environment, the vibration of the controller, and the faint view available to the user for them to use as they escape the terror filled illusion. This, as I’ve stated amongst my friends and fans, is one of my favorite levels in the entire game.
The whole design of this level banks hard on the cooperation with the voices in your head, the severe lack of visual information presented to the player, the subtle vibrations of the controller highlighting landmarks and danger, and the sheer amount of auditory knowledge the player is given to work with. It’s brilliant. It’s was the best representation of sheer unaltered horror I’ve experienced since playing the original Dead Space back in college.
SFX
Of course, we can’t talk about sounds without talking about SFX. And here I bring about Project Cars 2, and how it’s high attention to detail on every spectrum offers a visceral experience for the player to achieve high immersion.
Most racing games have standard sound effects of the engine, tire squeal, and transmission, but Project Cars elevates SFX to the direct control of the player in ways that once realize, make it harder to enjoy other simcades which don’t quite hit it.
We start with the obvious, the ferocity of the engine, and its demand for respect. Some engines are more sonorous that their competitors, offering various sounds that reviewers and journalists akin to personalities. The majestic V12 of an Aston Martin hints a sense of elegance, while the ferocity of the V12 in say a La Ferrari offers a more hyper-aggressive persona. Gone is the elegance of a royal sword, passed down by generation, replaced with the honed blade of a rapier, made to strike with instant precision.
No V8s are the same. AMG V8s bellow with the sound of thunder and fury, akin to a German wielding a giant hammer, ready to swing at full speed. But look at another V8, the one from the McLaren P1. Gone is the brute force, and replaced is a more precision tone, designed to remain in the high end, to grind up the gears in ferocity and anger. The hammer, versus the sword.
There’s more! Player action dictate how much the car will react audibly, and give tons of queues to the seasoned driver on what the car is doing right this second, and how to work with the car to win. Positional audio on tire squeals while in cockpit mode help confirm the understeer you experience. The act of short shifting which results in the car lurching forward, in order to kill wheel spin and make up for grip.
SFX design is in every video game. Again, I draw attention to Destiny 2. The SFX provides such meaningful sound effects that almost any player can discern what weapon is being fired at any given time. Ignoring the lethality potential of most exotics, each gun has a distinct sound that almost any player can identify just by the sound it makes:
The Sun Shot and it’s bellowing mini cannon fodder. The Tractor Cannon and it’s Lucio bass bump. The Graviton Lance and it’s synth rip through space and time. The Wardcliff Coil and it’s mad scientist screech. Even the infamous MIDA with it’s pogo stapler machined precision. Every gun in Destiny offers a visceral and distinct sound experience that adds more emotional impact to the game. The Graviton Lance is a mediocre gun, require all shots to hit their target while also fighting against the pace of the game due to the massive recoil. But I find it so much fun to shoot due to how interesting it sounds.
Conclusion
It’s easy to dismiss sound design as some extra tacked on part of the game. But as games increase in complexity and scale over the years, the same tried and true sounds won’t work anymore, pushing developers to become more creative over time. From the wondrous and memorable scores from games like Destiny and Nier Automata (who won Best Score at the game awards), to groundbreaking design decisions used in storytelling to elevate the experience of the world we inhabit in gaming, to sound effects buffing the moment to moment experiences we grab during each long late-night slog.
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