How Sound Design Makes Games Feel Lonely

Sound design is an incredibly important part of games and really all media that sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The way sound designers are able to communicate ideas and emotions through sounds alone is incredibly fascinating, and I’ve found myself being drawn to how sounds relate to one particular emotion: loneliness. With so many of my favorite titles from Outer Wilds to Breath of the Wild to Hollow Knight to Dark Souls to Journey exploring themes of solitude, designers have to find ways to make games sound lonely, so I tried to look into some of the sounds and techniques that I find make me feel lonely when I hear them.

Special thanks to honorary bagbutens Elfinrez and WilliamGlenn8.

[WolvericCatkin]

The interesting note of pianos being a lonely instrument, playable by one person, to me, feeds back into the fact Hollow Knight's soundtrack being composed by a single person...

[Patterrz]

I can't hear what loneliness sounds like because my tinnitus is always with me

[daughterofthestars]

I'm sure there's LOTS of games you could have included in this video, but a lot of people forget about Minecraft when it comes to this kind of thing. It's easy to see the chaos, the colors, the exploration, the multiplayer experience, but Minecraft played by yourself with the music turned on, especially back before there was a lot of stuff added to it, was very much a game about the experience of isolation and exploration, and the soundtrack reflects that feeling. As does the sound of your own footsteps, the calls of nearby mobs, even the sound of chests. I love the headcanon that minecraft when it came out was a world desolated and empty, with barely anything alive and moving, and slowly the updates have been introducing things in a linear fashion almost like a world that's mending itself from a tragedy. The villagers expanding in technology, more animals appearing and flourishing, the oceans coming back to life, etc!

[pieguy]

As someone who knows quite a lot of music theory, I think you managed to absolutely nail this analysis without using any confusing theory. I think it's probably for the better, as the way you approached this will definitely resonate with people more easily since they won't have to wrap their heads around the theory. Amazing video as always Razbuten!

[danulas]

This just in: Outer Wilds, Breath of the Wild, and Hollow Knight are good games.

All jokes aside, when you started talking about footsteps, I was certain Outer Wilds would come up. I was right, but not entirely in the way that I thought however I agree that the sounds of breathing are very unsettling throughout the game.

[MarteaniArt]

The sound of footsteps in untouched snow. It's hard to nail, because people forget snow absorbs all other sound, so the whole world is quieter. Cainhurst in Bloodborne feels infinitely lonelier than the rest of the game. Zagreus walking to the final fight. That soft ephemeral crunch.

[aandro]

A game I play that makes me feel lonely is Minecraft. Especially when I load up a server I started with my friends but no one is on it. I just wonder around admiring all the builds we made and it makes me sad and happy at the same time. Also when I hear that music stop and all hear are my own foot steps makes me feel real lonely.

[csmosage]

Dirtmouth and City of Tears make me feel so empty… 10 hours into HK and I’m lovin it
Edit: now that I think of it, most themes I’ve heard so far sound lonely and melancholy, conveying the exact thing the Knight must be feeling

[bri-notthecheese]

Finding and sitting to listen to Marissa sing in the City of Tears was probably one of the simplest and most profound experiences of loneliness in a video game. Because sure, as the Knight, I was exploring alone and doing this whole journey mostly by myself, save for a couple of friends--but Marissa has been alone in this room for ages, just....singing to no one. And I love that the game allows you to choose to sit with her and share in that loneliness for as long as you like <3

[xanathar]

One of my favourite quotes ever comes from the TV show "The Good Place" the quote is "As humans, we're just a little bit sad all of the time". This quote expresses the feeling of melancholy for me. In your happiest moments there will always be something that is a little bit sad or worrying. Lonliness is a big reason for it. I personally, especially recently, have had many occasions of feeling profound acceptance and feeling loved by friends and family, but then that is always followed by a feeling of lonliness once it's over. This feeling is something I welcome, as it is, as melancholic as it may be, a good feeling. The reason I loved hollow knight as much as I did during the beginning of my first playthrough was because of that feeling of lonliness. The empty world and sombre piano. It was a feeling I wish I could experience again with that game. GRIS did the same thing for me, especially in the final area. This feeling can be perfected with what sounds are being used like what you have spoken about in this video, and it's a very beautiful thing. If certain games didn't have this feeling of lonliness, they wouldn't appeal to me quite as much.

[tessamarci]

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I’ve had trouble getting into Souls games in the past isn’t the difficulty, but the sheer feeling of loneliness. The general lack of music punctuated only by the players footsteps and inhuman enemy sounds creates a really desolate and emotionally draining atmosphere

[noahthehoneyboy]

The crackling of fire. For games it’s definitely the long dark, it feels isolating and reminds you of every second you spend waiting for something to happen but it never comes. To accompany visuals to this, the light of a campfire makes it hard to see anything outside that light. Someone could be right next to you and you wouldn’t be able to see or hear them as the fire overtakes your senses

[EDips]

The halo 3 ODST soundtrack made me feel uneasy when I played it for the first time, walking through the empty city along with the echoing jazz, rain and abandoned machines like the phones ringing always made me feel very alone

[RainMakeR_Workshop]

Lol the first thing I thought of when Raz asked "what does loneliness sound like" was "my own breathing" and then later in the vid he mentions it when talking about The Outer Wilds.
Thats more of a dangerous solitude rather than loneliness to me though. I was thinking of lying in bed and all I can hear is loneliness my own breathing. Rather than my partner breathing, which I find oddly comforting.

[maggier]

This explains why I found the game Sky: Children of the Light to be so lonely. When I was with friends it wasn’t that way, but playing alone felt so devastating because you can hear the interactions of others in the distance as well as the peaceful sound effects from the game itself

[BREADSWORD]

another banger from the gamer god himself

[Diphenhydra]

When you asked the question I immediately thought silence, but just because it’s the absence of noise, not because I actually think of loneliness because of it. I would say the loneliest sound to me is the sound of waves hitting the shore, not a big wave, just a small one. Specifically small ones actually. Big ones I would think of a thunderstorm and lots of people. Small waves for me, probably stems from growing up at a beach and a lot of times at night I would sit in the sand and look out into the horizon by myself.

[filipporosatti]

Dude, I need to thank you. This video reminded me a lot about the one you made about vibe checks, which I can say for sure is up to this day my absolute favorite video on YouTube. It made me think about life in a different way and generally to appreciate it way more.
I absolutely love how you get to analyze games how they're meant to be seen, since lots of people (myself included of course) tend to miss a lot of the messages the developers probably wanted to give.
I absolutely love also the importance you give to music in games, and love every video where you talk about it. Can't wait for another one, some of them are literally life changing.
Keep up the good work man, we all truly appreciate it

[thezandstorm]

easily the loneliest sounds to me are those of an empty house. the settling of walls and objects, the creaking of floors, the brushing of trees against the outside walls, the faint random noises that you can’t quite place, all of these things make me feel incredibly lonely as they remind me of every time in my life that i’ve been home alone, and how no matter who i was living with, i could only think about how lonely the house was when it was just me.

[pedroscoponi]

I personally find it useful to differentiate between good loneliness and bad loneliness. Lots of things can get me in a good, melancholy loneliness place, many of them sounds from games I adore. Ocarina of Time's title theme, to name one - horse galloping included. But I have a visceral negative lonely reaction to the sounds of several people talking - the more there are, the worse it gets. I'm an introvert by nature - there is no place more alone to me than one full of people you can't (sometimes don't want to) connect with.






(At this point I'm mostly used to this experience but when it sometimes happens when I'm with _friends_ who I _love_ and was, until 5 seconds ago, gladly hanging out with, it's uh, quite the whiplash. Not very fun 😅)