Supervising Sound Designer - Audio Lead

​

For the development of Returnal, we collaborated with the amazing Finnish developers at Housemarque. We brought our 3D Audio expertise with the goal to achieve the most immersive experience on PS5, showcasing Tempest audio and Dualsense haptics.
 

I was responsible for the Audio of the title, ensuring Housemarque direction was represented by Audio and Haptics, creatively and technically.

_

​

The overall direction was to craft an unconventional and unsettling atmosphere, as well as satisfying gameplay with lots of feedback to help the players make sense of the challenging combat situations.

​

‘Unconventional’ meant an exploration of creative ways to express the soundscape of Atropos, avoiding any comfortable stereotypes, while still guaranteeing believability of the world. It was a collaboration between the sound team and the Housemarque directors, who pushed us to go well beyond the ‘safe’ zone ! 

 

The believability and physicality of the world is expressed through detailed sonic textures that can make the game feel very tactile and 'crunchy', through the creation of ASMR source material and the combination of sound with haptics. It all comes together as a nuanced and tactile experience, which blends and compliments well with the abstract nature of the atmosphere, music and narrative.

​

On top of bringing the game's unique aesthetics and gameplay to life through sound, we wanted to craft a tasteful showcase of the latest audio advancements coming with this generation of gaming. 3D Audio immerses the players into the experience, but is also naturally acting as a central element of the gameplay (as opposed to a gimmick). It intuitively helps the players to be better and survive in a truly difficult game. There is a lot of verticality in the level design and combat, which is a perfect match for a three-dimensional audio experience!

_

​

Returnal represented the most ambitious title ever undertaken by Housemarque. It was a really exciting project to be part of, and a real challenge too, like all projects for a new generation of consoles... But also because half of the audio development cycle took place in our homes, due to the Covid-19 pandemic !

​

We have been blown away by the critical, media and player reception of the audio for Returnal. It was the most humbling experience to see our discipline praised in reviews and online threads, and certainly the best possible reward after such a phenomenal team effort. I am proud of what our team achieved on this title.

​

For more detail about how we made the sound of Returnal, check out the A Sound Effect article, Tonebenders and Sound Architect podcasts.

​

Key Responsibilities

​

• Responsible for the sound of the title

• Establishing a unique audio vision in collaboration with Housemarque, and guaranteeing to deliver against it

• Overseeing and reviewing the work of up to 30 sound designers scattered across Finland, UK, Canada and USA

• High level production - scheduling and prioritising the audio team's work (with our producers) to deliver our vision against deadlines

• Audio design: previs to support audio vision, some cinematic moments, a few key sounds of Selene

• Structuring the Wwise project and mixing for the best 3D Audio and haptics results on the PS5 system

​