10 PERFECT Sound Design Moments That Improved Video Games

2. Battlefield Series – Warfare

This list wouldn’t be complete without some sort of gunplay rearing its head. Any successful FPS player knows that audio cues are crucial in getting the edge over their opponents. Enemy player footsteps, the proximity of gunfire, and squad callouts are all soundbites to be exploited, so sounds must be as realistic and clear as possible if players are to rack up the kills.

Enter Battlefield’s Frostbite engine. The engine has the incredible power to make sounds affect one another. The loudness of a bullet whizzing past your skull will be drowned out if an aerial explosion occurs overhead, simulating how warfare waveforms would sound.

Anyone who’s played any of DICE’s games will know their soundscapes are wonderfully crisp and dynamic. Sprinting into underground bunkers and city subways produce rich reverberations to each footstep and pistol blast, while aerial combat factors in your engine’s drone, enemy planes whizzing past, and the rush of wind when you need to make a quick bail from your fiery aircraft.

In the words of Bence Pajor, audio director for Battlefield 1: “The most important thing is that you as a player should be able to close your eyes and feel you are really there — whether it be trenches, forest, desert or the French countryside at night.”