In the previous blog post, I talked about the process of developing sound design for video games, and so I thought it was pertinent to talk about my favourite sound implementations. In my opinion, what takes audio for video games to another level is programming skills and the characteristics of multimedia itself. This factor reminds me a lot of the concepts covered in sound art exhibitions in January. In that module, I learned what is called, according to Adam Basanta, the fifth dimension – interactivity. Realising which factors in our creation can influence the experience of the “mobile” listener makes a total analogy with the “audio listener” of video games. A good sound design or sound designer is one who, through a very broad knowledge of creative sound applications, manages to take the player/audio listener to other levels of understanding of reality.
In this publication I will address implementations that fascinate me both from a technical and a personal perspective. There are implementations that are technically complex, but the result is quite simple or vice versa.
The sound of Alien: Isolation
In researching information to talk about the aural experience the player has during the game, I came across terms I had never come across before. “Sound Engine” or “Sound AI”. Terms that are apparently pioneered in this game, especially the latter. For Valkyrie Sound, a sound designer for video games, Alien: Isolation, has “has the best sound design in any video game”. He explains that the game sound design blurs the line between the biological and the mechanical between music and sound effect, the mundane and the horryfying and between game and film.
There are several elements I would like to talk about this one especially in terms of my personal experience. Alien: Isolation is a horror game that bases its narrative on the space station Sevastopol, which is in total chaos after a spread of the xenomorph bacteria, an ancient biochemical weapon that invades humans and uses them as a foundational base for the creation of a killer monster popularly known as the alien. The main character of the game is the daughter of Ellen Ripley (who starred in the 1970s by Sigourney Weaver) – Amanda Ripley. She enters the station after having an accident on her spaceship. Initially, little information is given about what is happening on the station, but noticeably something very wrong is going on. However, and through dramatic irony, the player knows what is coming.
It is through this irony that the entire sound design is based. The player, from the very beginnings of gameplay, is encapsulated in a cloud of tension that is impossible to escape. With its 8000+ sounds, Alien: Isolation emerges the player in layers and layers of chronic anxiety, where anything that moves has instinctive repercussions that exalt fear in a brilliant way. The game is endowed with mechanisms and techniques that make this possible.
Ambiences
As mentioned earlier, there is a correlation between the technological and the biological. In Sevastopol, the ambient sounds are a biological representation of a mechanical being. The space station breathes, shakes, freezes, sneezes. All this in a subtle but fearful representation. This environment, however, is not constant. It is a sound that mutates according to the player’s movement, intensifying and attenuating at times.
Sound Engine and the Alien AI
The game is very dark and the sound is, I would say, 70% responsible for that. The remaining 30% is the image of the alien that takes less than 3 seconds. The sound, on the other hand, takes a lifetime to fade. This is due to the existence of a sound engine programmed in Unreal 4. The sound adapts to the circumstances in which the player finds himself. If it’s dark, the music gets worse. If the player is hiding, panic sets in. Collaterally to the sound world of the game, there were also innovations in 2014 at its release regarding the AI device inserted in the alien. This AI recognises the player, and studies patterns of conduct that they normally have in their gameplay. I would say that the player has no chance of surviving in 70% of the occasions that the alien is in the same place as him, and 99,9% once he has observed it. Only sound can save the player.
This scene is an excellent representation of what I’m talking about. The player is in the first hour of the game and after a cutscene where a character is killed by the alien, without Amanda realising exactly what form he is in (dramatic irony), she flees in a panic to survive. Meanwhile, she waits for a train that will take her to another side of the station, but it’s quite late, and the player can do nothing but wait.
Radar vs. Footsteps or Tech. vs Bio
One of the most classic moments in the game is the dialectic you created between the alien detection radar and the sound of the alien itself. Everything is interconnected. The alien’s AI is sensitive to sound, so any sound produced by the player will attract the AI to it, causing the player to die. This radar, called in the game “motion tracker”, however, emits the most traumatizing sound that can be more terrifying than the sound of the monster itself. As the alien approaches, the radar beeps more and more, but sometimes the sound is misleading and the alien ends up not appearing. It’s a somewhat unfair mechanic, where the player can’t control it. The player just suffers.