Kyle walks us through the sound design of Black Ops 6, and why you’ll want a pair of good cans when it comes out!
Call of Duty sure knows how to keep us all hyped for the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 this coming October 25! Last week, the Call of Duty blog gave us a rundown of what went down in the Black Ops timeline, from sleeper agents to weapons of mass destruction and gut-wrenching betrayals. This week, the people behind the scenes have given us a peek at what went into the development and innovation of Black Ops 6’s hyper-detailed and dynamic soundscape. Once again, if you want to read the full blog, you can do so here.
A New Meaning to Surround Sound
To an Operator, nothing is more important than your senses. For years, Operators just like you have been honing their hand-eye reflexes to notice even the most minute details on screen. From the smallest flick of a gun barrel to the quickest of corner peeks, none go unnoticed by top Operators. Black Ops 6 aims to deliver a game that compliments and enhances this dedication and experience. The team over at Treyarch has painstakingly enhanced the soundscape of their game, affording players an almost four-dimensional sound experience. Every bullet, gunshot, footstep, explosion, and flick can be heard in crisp high definition at accurate speeds, direction, and volume. At the head of this audio odyssey are sound wizards Collin Ayers and William Cornell. Ayers and Cornell’s years at Treyarch have culminated in this astounding soundscape.
Bass Boosted Battlefield
With each game Treyarch produces, the standard of innovation grows exponentially. Black Ops 6 is no exception to that philosophy. The Audio team at Treyarch had one goal with this game, and that was to place the players into a hyperrealistic soundscape. One that was rich with purposeful noise amidst the blare of the battlefield
“The goal for the audio team on Black Ops 6,” Ayers said, “is what we’re calling the adaptive battlefield, a more purposeful and directional soundscape that focuses on the information players need when they need it while reducing the clutter of extraneous noise.”
The team focused on giving keen-eared players an edge by improving the accuracy of the distance of sounds. Every fired gun and running footstep were meticulously and precisely developed by the audio team just to give the players a more active and dynamic playspace. Sound is a crucial aspect of Black Ops, and Treyarch wanted to up the ante with Black Ops 6.
A Sound Argument
If we can spend hours raving about the visuals of a game, then we can very well take the time to appreciate the sound of a game. Most modern games focus a lot on visual appeal, and that’s for a good reason. The visuals drag in players, but a good soundtrack and immersive soundscape are what keep them in.
Imagine firing your pistol in an abandoned building and feeling the excitement of hearing the gunshot echoed off the walls. Or your heart pounding as you listen to the footsteps of an enemy just down the hall. These are the feelings Treyarch wanted to evoke with the soundscape of Black Ops 6, and in order for that to happen, they needed to work on the realism of the sounds, as well as the in-game physics.
Angles and trajectories aren’t just for gunshots and bullets. Sound follows a set rule of physics and interacts with objects in specific ways. In order to mimic those movements and physics in-game, the team had to vigorously simulate and develop various sound systems that would emulate the acoustics of specific sounds. On their blog, the team shows us a visualization of the in-game physics of sound, and boy, is it impressive. We highly recommend checking out their blog after this article!
We could go on and on about the development and how good the soundscape of the game is, but don’t take our word for it. Put on a nice pair of headphones and immerse yourself in the four-dimensional soundscape of Black Ops 6!
Check out our previous Black Ops 6 articles!
Read More:
COD: Black Ops – The Story So Far – VRSUS
