Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
92 M PS E . O R G has a context. These were part of my onboarding documents, which I presented to each new sound designer. As you can see, there is only one game there. When looking for references to present to the team, I tend to avoid using other games as aesthetic examples. Instead, I provide each reference with a concise context to explain why it's on the list. My avoidance of using games as references comes from the idea that references shouldn't be copied but interpreted. Using other media other than games means you have to reinvent the reference to work in a nonlinear media. Having said all that, there was one show that came out during production that influenced how I envisioned the game's sound: Netflix's Archive 81. The audio in this show shares many similar ideas with Alan Wake 2, such as the use of voice, questioning reality, and simple sound cues like TV static. Most of all, it was the feel. The sound and mix are subtle but come together in a way that makes you feel genuinely uneasy. It's a shame there was never a second season. RR: Now I've got to check out Archive 81! But that "feel" you're talking about is all through the game. It's tremendously immersive and atmospheric. Can you share some of the key techniques you used to achieve that sense of unease and dread? RL: Thanks, it's very nice to hear these compliments. Before the game came out, we had no idea how the audio would be received. As with all long projects, we were blind to what we'd done, and because of the complex nature of the game and production, we were particularly unaware that we had award-winning audio on our hands. The feeling of unease and dread, combined with the slow speed of the gameplay, gave us the space to build the audio. In horror audio, the anticipation, foreshadowing, misdirection, and ambiguity of the sounds are crucial. The trouble with games is that it's nearly impossible to predict what the player will do, so building anticipation and foreshadowing is hard. It becomes a complex matrix of 'what if the player Alan explores an eerie subway tunnel in the Dark Place, where what he sees is as difficult to trust as what he hears.