The Emotive Impact of Sound Design in Gaming
How often do we stop and admire the sound design of games? In this piece, a gameHER articulates why sound design is such an important part of our gaming experience, focusing on examples from God of War and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
By Jess Elford
From photorealistic visuals to meticulous game design featuring cinematic interactions with even the most mundane tasks, the push toward realism in games promises to submerge players in an immersive and impressionable world.
This push is facilitated by hard-working individuals collaborating to bring their respective creative visions to life, illustrating awe-inspiring scenery, forging unique narratives, and designing intuitive, responsive worlds.
Reflecting on the developments of game design that give video games such details, we often focus on visuals, dialogue, or story.
But, how often do we stop to admire the sound design of games?
If the answer is not often, we may want to reconsider.
In a 2007 Game Design Conference panel entitled "The Importance of Audio in Gaming: Investing in Next Generation Sound" the panelists provided particularly noteworthy statistic:
"83% of Adult Gamers listed sound as one of the most important video game console elements."
Even if we don’t immediately acknowledge it, we as gamers know sound is crucial.
Perhaps the importance of sound design is ingrained in us subconsciously. After all, most of us have been hearing sounds since the womb. By providing us with the ability to communicate and navigate our surroundings, sound is crucial to our survival and experience of the world around us.
Historically, audio has been an integral part of gaming. The audio elements of early games (pinball, slot machines, and arcade games) performed a hailing function. This function enticed players by creating excitement for the games.
Audio didn't just attract players; it also played a commercially important role in engaging those players for longer play sessions, rewarding them by making the players feel successful with unique, often primitive, sound effects upon near misses.
I felt this effect in my own life. Growing up by the sea, my earliest gaming experiences were the pier amusements. From kart racing games to whack-a-mole, the paring of game mechanics and sound design kept me playing for hours. This fascination with sound continued throughout my childhood, cultivated by the newest console releases and gaming epics, captivating my attention for years on end.
That fascination has not faded. As video game worlds have grown more realistic, immersive, and responsive, so has the sound design that creates these worlds.
Since the early days of game design, audio teams have expanded. They now include several departments, each playing a crucial role in creating a living environment for players to immerse themselves in. These departments broadly consist of composers, voice actors, audio programmers, and of personal interest to me, sound designers.
When compared to the majority of the audio team, good sound design is typically much harder to detect. Sound design is often employed to enhance the world and game design through its realistic creation and implementation. As a result, sound can often blend into the background – overshadowed by the score and actors' performances, becoming an accessory to an encompassing narrative.
Over the years, many games have implemented interesting sound design; however I would like to focus on two recent examples: God of War and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I believe that both of these games implement sound design as a crucial dynamic in their gameplay, placing emphasis on certain objects and characters whilst also playing a functional role in directing the player through the games’ worlds.
In her book Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, Karen Collins best summarizes these effects, stating:
"Audio serves, for instance, to alert the player to an upcoming event, or to forewarn the player of approaching enemies. Anticipating action is a critical part of being successful in many games, particularly adventure and action games. Notably, acousmatic sound— sound with no clear origin visually— may inspire us to look to the direction of a sound"
God of War, an action adventure game in which Kratos – the titular God of War, undertakes a quest to scatter his dead lover’s ashes. Accompanied by his son Arteus, the two traverse their dangerous surroundings, growing closer as a result.
Centering around Norse mythology, the foreboding fantasy world is accented by Bear McCreary's imposing score and sound design lead Mike Niederquell's scaled-up approach to sound design:
"Creature sound design is probably one of the hardest things we do. There are various ways you can approach this but one way that helped us sell the size of characters outside of increasing amplitude was being mindful of the channel count and sound emitter placement (i.e where sounds play from). All the smaller, humanoid characters, usually contained one sound emitter, located at their head. If they happened to have a weapon, like a sword, the swinging "whoosh" sounds would then play from the end of the sword."
In my playing experience, this sound design choice is especially effective when fighting the trolls.
The sonic effect creates the illusion of physically shrinking, heightening the danger imposed by these characters.
Also, the echoes accenting the troll's movements cause me to perceive them as being larger, adding to their imposing stature. Furthermore, the dominance of bass frequencies in the mix enhance the presence of the trolls – especially when paired with the visual of their giant stone pillars.
More than in any other part, the strength of the game’s sound design is cemented as soon as the pair first encounters the World Serpent. Despite the cinematic visuals, the design of the creature’s voice alone communicates his sheer size. The guttural resonance of his voice, layered with animalistic clicks is both fantastical yet realistically integrated, ensuring a thematic constant is maintained.
God of War illustrates sound design potential on a large scale whilst also highlighting its imperative status in action-adventure games. In this context, the sound design serves to immerse the player in the world and also enhance combat by altering the player’s interpretation of sound.
At the other end of the development scale is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Released in 2017, the game is an independently developed AAA title, featuring a team of only twenty developers.
The game follows the story of Senua, a Celtic warrior who undertakes a journey to Helheim which will reunite her with her deceased lover. This journey is paved with monsters she must fight and horrors she must overcome in order to reach her final destination.
What sets this game apart, however, is Senua's struggle with severe mental illness – namely psychosis.
Senua's mental illness is central to every element of the game and the audio is no exception. Senua hears numerous voices, some instilling fear and doubt and others offering guidance and understanding.
In a studio development diary, Dominic Matthews and Tameem Antoniades explain their experimentation with binaural audio:
"Binaural recording is method of capturing sound by positioning two microphones in such a way that they hear the sound in the same way that a person would. For this we use a microphone that replicates a human head. Binaural audio really makes you feel present within a space. But crucially for our game it allows us to emulate voice hearing, which is a phenomenon that Senua experiences a great deal of in our game.”
The team then goes on to explain the 3D soundscape created through recording binaurally, giving the voices physical dimension and placing the player in Senua's head, and thus, her world.
For the player, the first ten minutes of this game consist of acclimatizing to this effect, and as a result can be incredibly unsettling. In my first playthrough, the physical dimension and movement of the voices proved to be nausea-inducing.
As I continued through the game, I found myself growing increasingly attached to Senua. Every insight into her past grew more crushing but also highlighted the importance of her journey. A large part of this empathetic immersion is owed to the team's engagement with voice-hearers, and their dedication to faithfully translating their experiences into a gaming experience.
Beyond the voices, the sound design also features, as the main tool to lead the player through the game, the sounds of lurking monsters being the only clue as to their location. At times, the audio will also juxtapose the visuals, serving to further disorientate the player.
Hellblade pushes the boundaries of sound design, implementing it as a crucial element of both the narrative and the functioning of the game. The game’s biggest success is its ability to place the player in Senua's head, teaching them to empathize with her struggles. I feel this sentiment is best summarized in Development Diary 24:
"It points to something important that I think games can offer, which is to let you live in the skin of someone else, someone who perceives the world very differently to most of us, and understand what they're going through in a way that no amount of reading about the subject can do.”
Enabling empathetic engagement with a protagonist, elevating narrative elements, and enhancing game design, sound design is a versatile yet often overlooked tool. However, this may soon change.
With next-generation consoles announcing promising upgrades to their audio capabilities, the future of immersive, empathetic audio looks bright. As resources in game design continue to grow, the time for innovative sound design is now.
About the Author:
Jess Elford is an undergraduate, currently studying for her degree in music. She enjoys writing about the relationship between music and other media, especially video games.
Jess aspires to work as part of an audio team in the games industry. Her interest in music stemmed from her early engagement with video games, playing ever since she received her first hand-held console.
Jess Elford, photo courtesy of the author
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