Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
PLAYSTATION STUDIOS - CREATIVE ARTS SOUND: Harvey Scott (HS) Project Audio Director/ Senior Sound Designer II Juuso Tolonen (JT) Project Lead Sound Designer/ Senior Sound Designer I Bianca Salinas (BS) Senior Dialogue Designer Damian O'Sullivan (DO) Dialogue Designer Joanna Fang (JF) Senior Foley Artist From an aesthetic and inspirational standpoint, which games, films, and other media influenced the soundscape of Helldivers 2 (HD2)? From a design standpoint, what did you want the game to sound like? JT: We didn't really have any very specific influences or references to match and we let every designer follow their own vision, so it's a bit of a mix of everyone's own preference. With this variety, we just wanted to match the overall punchiness and visceral quality of the sound design and make sure it fit the modern aesthetic across the board. There was a bit of a pivot in the overall sound aesthetic though—in the early days, there were some ideas about including some of the campy or whimsical nature of the world in the sounds as well. Maybe things would sound a little more rattly or unstable, in order to support the narrative of the Helldivers being provided with subpar equipment and things being made of scrap parts or on budget, but this didn't seem to translate that well and as the game evolved, it didn't really match the game direction either. There might be elements of this here and there in the released game but we mostly pivoted toward a punchy and tactile feel just to make sure it's very rewarding and satisfying for the player, which also ultimately helped to keep the mix very clean. HS: Whilst there are obvious visual and narrative influences from the world of cinema, we wanted to take it beyond the now- dated sound design aesthetics of those Hollywood classics. In many cases, we tried to steer the sound design to fit that of a movie trailer, using risers, pre-hits, and larger-than-life impacts wherever feasible to maximize the hype. Likewise, focusing on ensuring all content was as full spectrum as possible for us to be able to give each sound a chance to punch through with equal impact where the mix allowed. I think as well, it would be fair to give our previous work on Returnal, a shout-out in terms of influence, in terms of larger than life, modern feeling sci-fi design. Likewise with the most popular modern shooters in gaming today, they have all paved the way and set the bar very high for modern weapon design and it was something we certainly aimed to match with our asset designs. Which linear sound editing techniques did you lean on the most in the production of HD2's soundscapes? JT: For game audio, one big part of the puzzle has always been achieving a cinematic quality mix with the correct focus for the viewer or in this case, the player. Harvey and the team did a great job on this on Helldivers 2, dynamically carving out space for things in the mix as you'd do in linear media—making sure we're hearing the right things at the right time, but you still get a good feel of the scene M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 105 INTERVIEW WITH: