Video Game Sound Design

Apologies for the wait between uploads, made a video about video game sound design. There's a lot of extra sounds and games I didn't talk about for the sake of not making the video like 40 minutes long, so I might revisit the topic in the future. Hope you enjoy!

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This, is unpacking, a game all about, unpacking. Through clever environmental storytelling this game tells the story of someone’s life through moving into brand new homes over the course of 20-ish years. Now THIS, is the sound of an air freshener can on the tile floor of a bathroom, and here’s that same can on a sink, and on the lid of a toilet, and even on top of a toilet. See what makes unpacking so special on top of the qualities previously mentioned, is that this game has over 14,000 sound files for all of the things you organize in this game. Game cartridges, plushies, pots and pans, colanders, soap bottles, every single thing you organize in this game has so many different sounds for every possible thing you could set them on. All of this, is sound design.
When it comes to things that make or break a game, there’s a hierarchy of things that people actually care about, or should care about. Things like Music or Graphics are less important to a game then the story, or just the overall gameplay. That’s not to say that these aspects are, useless, but like everything, they have their place. Sound design falls somewhere, eehhhh (on screen of the text just flying everywhere). See, depending on the game, it can be something that goes completely unnoticed, and that’s seemingly by design. If you’re noticing the sound design in a game, 9 times out of 10 it’s because something is out of place, or even seemingly not what you expected.
With that out of the way, Let’s take the most recent call of duty for an example where sound design is important to the overall experience. Modern Warfare II is a prime example of a first person shooter, shooter being the important thing here. When you’re shooting a gun in one of these games you want it to, well, sound like a gun. A sound that’s powerful, yet succinct, and depending on how strong the weapon is, it might even linger through the air to convey that an incredible “boom” just took place. This whole experience would be ruined if you fired the Signal 50 and it didn’t sound as powerful as it looks. Go too far with realism on this though and the game wouldn’t be fun, no one would want to play if after 30 minutes everyone had tinnitus, it’s a delicate balance of making the gun sound powerful enough, without just playing the audio of the gun at it’s proper volume without editing.
But it’s not just gun sounds that can ruin the gunplay experience, it’s everything else around it. You can have the best sounding gun ever put in a video game, but where’s the audio for, fiddling with the gun, handling it, reloading it, the impact. Each one of these things is a separate sound, or sounds, that need to be added to create the full experience of just firing a weapon. Going past this, FPS games also need to balance feedback you get from using that weapon, it’s not just the sound of the gun going off, but the sound of the headshot at the other end that gives you that rush of dopamine. The sound of that melee, that rank up, that headshot motivates you with each and every hit of serotonin that it gives you, again and again throughout the gameplay loop. Is the game a failure without these things, no, but when done well it’s a significant enhancer to the experience.

[Stryxo]

It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌

[Just_a_commenter]

Good sound design is what can complete the atmosphere and feel of a game. Sometimes that's a hard hitting soundtrack that perfectly aligns with the action, other times erie silence that makes your spine tingle.

[logjitzu]

Sound design is one of those things that most people don't really pick up on at first, but once u learn about it, even just a bit, it will ALWAYS be noticeable when a piece of media has either poor or great audio design.

[puns]

I think Iron Lung is a great example of sound design, throughout the game you are in absolutely no danger (except if you crash yourself) yet the game has an extremely dreadful aura around it and just the sound that things create can make one afraid of seeing what is on the other side.

[CartrKillsGrunt]

As a sound designer myself, thank YOU for spreading the good word! Even within development it’s really not as highlighted as it should be, so I’m always happy to see stuff like this.

[bloop]

A great example is the Garden Warfare Two kill sound, the pop is so satisfying.

[MrItch]

The genuine quality of Stryxo's videos have gone up recently. Including their talking, Its like a consistent flow of information that somehow isn't overstimulating.
This is a good video

[stoneapollyon]

Factorios research sounds, or just the sounds of factorio in general give me such a strange feeling but i love it so much. it makes me want to play more of it.

[ECAPS.]

Good sound design is one that is immediately recognizable without visual context. You know it's Darth Vader when you hear that iconic breathing without seeing him.

[Mach--Fishbed]

I've said for years that there were 2 groups of devs that never got quite the attention they deserve and that was animators and sound designers/engineers. I think animators have been getting a lot more (well deserved) attention because of the greater focus on them and what they can achieve. I've always had some really odd love to see/hear some of these things very closely and it's nice seeing the people on the sound side are getting more love they so often deserve.

[MaleChromo]

Great video Stryxo! I think this really does bring to light to how important sound is!

[Makamakazi]

1:08 "Stroke me! I like to be stroked!" Bro what 😭😭😭

[FourEyeFreak]

good sound design can be so satisfying to hear :)

[Helperbot-]

Valve games in general have great sound design, if i were to pick out one favourite it would be half life 2, especially the train bridge section. You hear the ambience of the seagulls flying around, the ocean splashing far beneath you, the wind blowing around the bridge, and the bridge creeking as the trains pass overhead, its an eerie silence as the song lab practicum starts playing, its slow and feels almost random in its synthetic tones, and it perfectly ties together the atmosphere in one of the most beautiful moments of the game. Kelly Bailey is a fucking audio genius

[Evanz]

I respect the sponsor placement - instead of trying to smoothly transition into it, you pull a John Cena and mention it out of nowhere :’)

[Briver]

I always appreciate seeing some love sent towards game sound designers, it's a very strong and often completely ignored section of making a game. I will say I disagree with putting graphics at the bottom of this hierarchy of things people should care about though. Graphics are also very important to games and are often brushed off. In fact, a lot of what you said about sound design is stuff that can be said about graphics as well. Telling a story without words, like the resident evil ambience you mentioned can also be done with environmental storytelling or just how a place looks will effect the player's emotion and feeling. Silent hill's scares wouldn't be nearly as good without the great sound design, but it also wouldn't be nearly as good if the game looked like Genshin Impact. And with competitive games like CS:GO, vision is our primary sense so we get a ton of information from visuals, just like how the audio gives us information and can be used for deception. Imagine if you took Battlefield 4 and swapped the graphics with Team Fortress 2. The game would be fundamentally different to play. Things like the FLIR would be almost useless and hiding anywhere would be much more difficult, but the enemy would be much more clear and noticeable. Really, graphics and sound design both play a big part in how a game feels and plays, they're both important. You can get away with having one be great and the other be okay, but what's best is having both used together in a great way and in a way where they compliment each other.

[ToxicSalad]

I feel like Rust is a really often overlooked gem of excellent sound design. Every type of object has a unique looting sound depending on the material its made of. Combine that with the excelent sound engine and really good spatial audio brings the game to the next level of immersion.

[amsounds]

I'm an audio director for an indie org and lead sound designer/audio engineer for another org.
Sometimes is hard to make people realize that you experience games through 2 senses (most of the times. vibration is a thing): sight and hearing.
If you take audio away, you're missing out of 50% of your sensory experience.

[blindovermatter]

As somebody who, by life circumstances, if for no other reason, has to pay attention to the way that sound functions in our world, this is one of the most incredible videos on sound and sound design that I’ve ever seen, fantastic work.

[ArshadZahid_nohandleideas]

If we wanna talk JRPG sound design, Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga’s Agidyne, Ziodyne, Zandyne, Megidolaon, Mamudoon, Power/Mind Charge / Focus, physical, and debuff skill sound effects. They're peak, enough said