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[Cashon]

I was listening to the Retronauts Mass Effect podcast, while at work, and they played the opening bit when Anderson is talking about Shepard, and all I had to hear was the first 6 notes of that opening music to want to go back and play it again.
(I won't though, because I just recently beat it again in the Legendary Edition).
But it made me think about all of the sound in that game. Not just the music, but also the weapons, the voice-acting, the tones that play when you go into and back out of menus, the song that plays during the credits...
I think it's the game with my favorite overall sound design.

BioShock 1 and 2 are a very close second.

 

[Codes 208]

I’ll give 343 shit for a ton of things but holy shit credit where its due theyre magic at the audio quality.

Halo 4 did a damn good job with its sounds. The AR no longer sounded like a popcorn maker and all the covenant weapons sound convincingly like futuristic electical weapons.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Returnal

My personal vote for best sound design. Not only are the weapons and enemy sfx crushing and often truly intimidating sounding but the ambient music is just incredibly atmospheric and weirdly beautiful.

I also consider the performance the voice actress gave one of the most convincing and not-corny in gaming. There's not a silly "corny game line" moment in it somehow and the audio logs are often chilling imo.

Funny enough, the sound designer previously worked on Angry Birds.


Hunt: Showdown

Basically Headphones: The Game. Eerily quiet and ultra-detailed with a single gunshot able to scare the fuck out of you like nothing else in gaming. If you've never played it, the sound of footsteps has never been so terrifying.

 

[FrankWza]

Returnal

My personal vote for best sound design. Not only are the weapons and enemy sfx crushing and often truly intimidating sounding but the ambient music is just incredibly atmospheric and weirdly beautiful.

I also consider the performance the voice actress gave one of the most convincing and not-corny in gaming. There's not a silly "corny game line" moment in it somehow and the audio logs are often chilling imo.

Well said

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Well said

Seriously, some aspects of Returnal make games with ten times the budget feel like like amateur hour.

 

[RoadHazard]

Returnal

My personal vote for best sound design. Not only are the weapons and enemy sfx crushing and often truly intimidating sounding but the ambient music is just incredibly atmospheric and weirdly beautiful.

I also consider the performance the voice actress gave one of the most convincing and not-corny in gaming. There's not a silly "corny game line" moment in it somehow and the audio logs are often chilling imo.

Funny enough, the sound designer previously worked on Angry Birds.


Hunt: Showdown

Basically Headphones: The Game. Eerily quiet and ultra-detailed with a single gunshot able to scare the fuck out of you like nothing else in gaming. If you've never played it, the sound of footsteps has never been so terrifying.

Was gonna say Returnal. That game sounds amazing (which is amplified by the DualSense haptics etc).

 

[Juza]

 

[Pelta88]

Battlefield 2, 3, and 4.

DICE's bespoke audio fidelity was unmatched before Andrew Wilson forced them to chase the hero shooter market.

 

[FrankWza]

Seriously, some aspects of Returnal make games with ten times the budget feel like like amateur hour.

100% it's a game changer. Especially with headphones. I'll add and say that the audio is as necessary to being successful in the game as any I've played. When things got hectic I relied on the audio as much as visuals.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

I’ll give 343 shit for a ton of things but holy shit credit where its due theyre magic at the audio quality.

Halo 4 did a damn good job with its sounds. The AR no longer sounded like a popcorn maker and all the covenant weapons sound convincingly like futuristic electical weapons.

Yeah, I think Halo 4 gets a hard time.

I mean, I totally agree that it was barely a Halo game, but I didn’t care. It was fun, beautiful and sounded incredible.

 

[Killer8]

Wipeout Omega Collection has some of the best audio design ever not just in terms of the effects and banging soundtrack, but also the way things like a big jump or your ship getting damaged cause the whole soundscape to distort:



Battlefield 1 in Dolby Atmos.

Devil Daggers using headphones with the HRTF audio setting enabled.



Thumper, this game causes near out of body experiences in VR:



Black:

 

[Grildon Tundy]

In the Dead Space remake, there was a necromorph behind me, and because of the audio, I knew that it was behind, to my right, on the catwalk one level up.

I love positional audio or whatever you call it when you can tell exactly where everything is.

Even Call of Duty Warzone doesn't let you know if a bad guy is above or below you based on audio, and that would be a game-changer.

 

[Kakax11]

Don't hate me but as of recently The Callisto protocol got amazing sound design

 

[hinch7]

The Last of Us part 2. From the soundtrack, voice overs, sound effects to the 3D spatial audio.. that sets the bar for audio in a video game imo.

In terms of OST. Mainline Final Fantasy games almost always hit the mark in music. Being top quality and highly memorable in each release. The VO in FFXVI are astoundingly good too.

 

[Dacvak]

Half-Life Alyx had some incredibly immersive sound design, but VR is kind of cheating.

 

[Flabagast]

SOMA sound design is incredible.

Close second would be TLOU2 imho

 

[AngelMuffin]

Love the sound design of SoulsBorne.

 

[brian0057]

Absolute god tier sound design.
Which is unsurprising given that its stealth system literally depends on it.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

RDR2, GTAV, Prey (Arkane) and FFXI

 

[GooseMan69]

The Last of Us Part II

 

[CGNoire]

Thief
BF:BC2
Dead Space

 

[Imtjnotu]

Dice before 2042

Battle field 5 was some top notch sound design.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Scorn

Adis KutKut and Brian Williams have a pretty impressive portfolio on their own but their joint forces in the creation of the soundtrack and the sound design for Scorn is an otherworldly achievement.

Not enough credit for that in my eyes.

 

[Brigandier]

I played Returnal using a DAC/AMP with a pair of HiFiMan Sundara's... Good fucking lord absolutely incredible.

 

[Chukhopops]

To me the best sounding game ever is Ghostwire: Tokyo. Play it with a good surround sound system and the level of detail, layers, the atmosphere of a city that is both dead and alive. It’s a one of a kind game.

On the other hand never understood the hype for Returnal sounds but that’s a personal opinion. Between the cranky sounds coming from the controller, the unpleasant soundtrack (if you can even call that a soundtrack) and the flat mix it didn’t really stand out, even compared to something like Demons’ Souls.

 

[rofif]

Demons souls remake
Resi 2 remake?
Resi village on ps5 with 3d audio blew me away. It sounded real in maiden demo. Sadly fool me bought the full game on pc

 

[Heisenberg007]

Returnal.

Hands down.

 

[bbeach123]

That EA sound design team that work on Dragon age inquisition and Anthem .

Elite dangerous .

 

[PanzerCute]

Returnal

My personal vote for best sound design. Not only are the weapons and enemy sfx crushing and often truly intimidating sounding but the ambient music is just incredibly atmospheric and weirdly beautiful.

I also consider the performance the voice actress gave one of the most convincing and not-corny in gaming. There's not a silly "corny game line" moment in it somehow and the audio logs are often chilling imo.

Funny enough, the sound designer previously worked on Angry Birds.


Hunt: Showdown

Basically Headphones: The Game. Eerily quiet and ultra-detailed with a single gunshot able to scare the fuck out of you like nothing else in gaming. If you've never played it, the sound of footsteps has never been so terrifying.

Perfect post.

I would also add Demon Souls remake.

In terms of pure Sound Design, Olivier Derriviere might be one of the best. His work on Plague Tale, Remember Me, Vampyr and Streets of Rage 4 is absolutely stellar. That guy understands what dynamic sound design can do and how to blend it perfectly with gameplay.

 

[Stafford]

Right now that's RDR2 for me. The audio design greatly enhances an already amazing experience. I wish I had a top quality home cinema setup because I'm sure it would be intense to just stroll the swamps, stumbling upon a gator that is behind you and the rear speaker has the growl coming from it.

They nailed the audio design. My only issue is that the max volume is crazy low. Have had several different TVs now, and even with headphones it's just not a high max volume. So I have to put the volume at like 30 or even 50 out of 100 on my Sony, but the Xbox chimes are ridiculously loud then. Other than that, fantastic sound.

 

[cireza]

Excellent sound-design back then.

 

[Black_Stride]

Battlefield 3, 4, 1 and 5.

Best sound design of any game.....whether using 5.1 or headphones the game is always phenomenal.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Call of Duty games don't get enough credit for their amazing sound design IMO.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Excellent sound-design back then.

Spot on mate. Also one of the 1st games to have decent English voice acting. I love how the game used Stereo to its full effect, where if a character was on the left the voice would come from the left speaker, if on the right it would come from the right speaker and if in the centre it would come from both.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Hey, random question: Is 3D Spatial Audio what it's called when you can tell exactly where a sound source is emanating from (in front/behind/up/down/left/right)?

And does that include audio ray-tracing? What I mean by that is: In Dark Souls 3, for a negative example, if an enemy is directly to your right, but there's a wall between you, it still sounds like the enemy is directly to your right. The sound doesn't travel up to an opening ahead and back to you. I'm dying to play games where sound realistically bounces around the environment if anyone knows of any.

 

[RainyNguyen]

No games can beat TLOU2

 

[Quezacolt]

Hey, random question: Is 3D Spatial Audio what it's called when you can tell exactly where a sound source is emanating from (in front/behind/up/down/left/right)?

And does that include audio ray-tracing? What I mean by that is: In Dark Souls 3, for a negative example, if an enemy is directly to your right, but there's a wall between you, it still sounds like the enemy is directly to your right. The sound doesn't travel up to an opening ahead and back to you. I'm dying to play games where sound realistically bounces around the environment if anyone knows of any.

I think Dead Sapce Remake is the game for you then.
I remember the behind the scens, where they talked about how important the audio was, and how realistic they wanted to make it react.

 

[Flabagast]

Hey, random question: Is 3D Spatial Audio what it's called when you can tell exactly where a sound source is emanating from (in front/behind/up/down/left/right)?

And does that include audio ray-tracing? What I mean by that is: In Dark Souls 3, for a negative example, if an enemy is directly to your right, but there's a wall between you, it still sounds like the enemy is directly to your right. The sound doesn't travel up to an opening ahead and back to you. I'm dying to play games where sound realistically bounces around the environment if anyone knows of any.

Sound design in all From software games is dogshit, with no exceptions

 

[T-0800]

Yeah, I think Halo 4 gets a hard time.

I mean, I totally agree that it was barely a Halo game, but I didn’t care. It was fun, beautiful and sounded incredible.

The pistol in Halo 4 sounded terrible. I don't know what they were thinking.

 

[Cashon]

It looks like The Last of Us Part II and Returnal have been in the most replies so far, but mostly from a gameplay and music perspective. Neither of which I've played (didn't enjoy the first Last of Us and generally don't like the idea of procedurally-generated content).

Do these games have a comprehensive and cohesive overall sound design? I'm thinking I should've called the thread Most Memorable instead of Best.

The reason I mentioned Mass Effect and BioShock is because it feels like every element of the audio is meant to draw you into those worlds and make them memorable.

In Mass Effect, for example, there is one chime that plays when you select an option in menus and another chime that plays when you back out. Both Chimes feel both futuristic and... I don't know... Slightly ethereal, and mesh really well with the rest of the sounds in the game.

Or In Bioshock, as you scroll through the Start Menu, each time you go to a different option, a different piano note plays. There's always old music playing from scratchy records. You can often hear whale songs in the distance and water trying to find it's way into Rapture. And don't forget the Circus of Values!

Gameplay-wise, I've played a lot of games with fantastic audio, but the rest of the games' packages didn't really add much in terms of audio. Mostly just bullets, footsteps, explosions, etc... Which is fantastic while you're playing the game, especially with a good sound system or headphones, but they're often not particularly memorable.

 

[Cashon]

I think Dead Sapce Remake is the game for you then.
I remember the behind the scens, where they talked about how important the audio was, and how realistic they wanted to make it react.

Dead Space is another game that I think has really good overall sound design.

Not just from a gameplay perspective (hearing where enemies are around you, weapon sounds, etc), but the soft whispers you hear every once in a while, the weird sounds that play when you use Save Stations, the slightly static-y quality of the voice comms of other characters, the slightly muffled sound of Isaac's voice, the little chime that plays when you complete Chapter, the many, many ambient noises of the Ishimura... It all comes together to create an overall sound design that is both great and memorable. I can conjure it up just when reading the game's title.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Perfect post.

I would also add Demon Souls remake.

In terms of pure Sound Design, Olivier Derriviere might be one of the best. His work on Plague Tale, Remember Me, Vampyr and Streets of Rage 4 is absolutely stellar. That guy understands what dynamic sound design can do and how to blend it perfectly with gameplay.

Demon's Souls Remake sounds fucking excellent.

The slashes into enemies almost sound shockingly "realistic". All of it is top tier though.

And on that note, every Souls/From game since OG Demon's Souls sounds amazing. The sound design in Dark Souls is up there with my favorites of all time.

Also, the original Quake. Play the remaster. It sounds eerie on every level. There's something surreal and uncomfortable about like every sfx in it. Like the level designs, it's accidentally abstract art, cool shit.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

I think Dead Sapce Remake is the game for you then.
I remember the behind the scens, where they talked about how important the audio was, and how realistic they wanted to make it react.

Right on! I played this, and called out the audio as a positive example in another post. I didn't know it also did "audio occlusion"--I was probably too worried about the necromorphs right in front of me. I want to see this tech in EVERY game.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I think Dead Sapce Remake is the game for you then.
I remember the behind the scens, where they talked about how important the audio was, and how realistic they wanted to make it react.

Dead Space Remake is excellent all around imo. I could go on huge rants about how much they improved the smallest details on every level to make you think "duh it was always like this amirite, remaster". WRONG AS FUCK.

But yea. Audio is fantastic specifically. The doors themselves slund terrifying every time somehow. Everything sounds like "hasn't been oiled in decades" dystopian technology.

 

[RainyNguyen]

The sound design in TLOU2 is a marvel, you cannot deny this game set standards which no other game would ever dream of reaching with its sound design. From the music, voice acting, environmental sounds, gunshots, zombie scream, enemy communications, their screams when get hit,...to the tiniest details that 99% of players may not even notice and have never appeared in any other game such as Ellie's breathing system.

The Last Of Us 2: The Depth Of The Game’s Audio Experience - EssentiallySports

Beau Anthony Jimenez takes to Twitter to explain the intricacies behind the audio experience of Naughty Dog's The Last Of Us 2

www.essentiallysports.com

 

[Hudo]

You can say what you want about the Frostbite Engine but games made on this seem to really have good audio in general. I remember being blown away by BF1's audio.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Chrono Cross, by far.

 

[Bring Back Scalebound]

Metal Gear Solid 5 for me.

Everything from the Menu/UI sounds, gameplay related sounds (Guns, footsteps, explosions, so on), the incredibly useful sound cues, the tapes you can listen to with music or story related conversations/monologues, have a particular sound to them that makes them more enjoyable to listen to.

Playing MGS 5 with headphones is a experience on its own.

 

[grfunkulus]

I’ll give 343 shit for a ton of things but holy shit credit where its due theyre magic at the audio quality.

Halo 4 did a damn good job with its sounds. The AR no longer sounded like a popcorn maker and all the covenant weapons sound convincingly like futuristic electical weapons.

This is so true. Even the reload sounds are ingrained in my brain. The carbine ‘capsule’ (for lack of a better word) mag plunky sucky noise on reload is sublime. Playing the game at 120fps or higher for some reason accentuates the sounds when everything is so smooth and just creates a very believable environment and audio/visualscape

I think they took a few steps back with H5 and infinite though

 

[grfunkulus]

The pistol in Halo 4 sounded terrible. I don't know what they were thinking.

The pistol was one of the weaker sounds for sure but it wasn’t a focal point of the sandbox. You should have the same criticism of it in H2 and H3 if that is the case.