Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
44 M PS E . O R G PlayStation's music team easily translated to roles needing to be filled on the sound side. I was initially tasked with technical assignments and then gradually picked up more sound tasks over time. It was so nice to see you at the end of the 2023 GRAs with a trophy in your hand! What did it feel like to win at this point in your career? It was kind of surreal to be on the stage accepting an award I had only seen in photos and I am still incredibly glad that my first Golden Reel Award was for God of War Ragnarök of all games. A lot of passion went into this project from everyone involved. It was an absolutely massive project that required a great amount of effort, not to mention an army of people to complete! Anyone at the GRAs in 2023 will remember how comedically crowded the stage was when we went up, and that was maybe HALF of the extended sound team. What was working as a sound designer on this project like? I was in a fortunate and somewhat rare position of not being locked down to any one area of sound for the entirety of the three-ish years I was on the project. I had the pleasure of working on interactable elements under supervising sound designer Stephen Schappler, designing and executing the interactive music systems with Skylar Chen and Bradley Gurwin, and eventually leading the breakables effort with incredible sound designers Satsuki Sato and Zack Quarles. Any notable challenges you had to overcome? In game development, everything is essentially a problem-solving challenge. With experience, some are easier than others, and some have been solved before and just need to be reproduced. In a high-stress and high-performing environment, everyone will bring their perspective to the table and there's a level of fluidity and a willingness to compromise to find the best solution or combination of solutions. As I understand, you were the haptics lead for Helldivers II. Can you tell us a bit about the process? Developing the haptics for Helldivers II was such a fun and unique experience. There's not very many jobs where you could knock on your colleagues door and reasonably ask, "Hey, can you feel something for me?" but as of recently, sound designer is one of them. Haptics, for the uninitiated, are intentionally designed tactile feedback mechanisms. I believe that I have trivia-dropped to most people I've met this year that "haptics in the DualSense controller are actually controlled by two sound-driven haptic engines." Most people, however, simply smile, nod, and walk away. Haptics are created by routing sounds to the two aforementioned haptic speakers. The previous generation's controllers were driven by the same technology that made your old Nokia phone vibrate. It was simpler technology that only allowed for on/off with very limited intensity parameters. The modern haptic motors in the PS5