Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 109 reference. Because game audio dialogue is so dynamic, we handle each audio file individually. This meticulous process includes micro-leveling through manual automation, noise cleanup, and de-clicking. By avoiding batch processing, it ensures that each audio asset is treated uniquely, enabling us to address specific nuances of the recording environment, the performance, and tonality to achieve level consistency. We also take the time to conduct thorough listening reviews and go through a full remastering stage to prepare for the final mix. Batch processing might not adequately address specific nuances like variations in tone or volume between different lines of dialogue and struggles to accurately eliminate noise or address subtle differences in timing and pacing without individual attention to each file. Although ours is a slower process, this approach pays off when each character's dialogue sounds harmonious in reference to each other, and within the broader auditory landscape of the game. Every time we finish our last round of dialogue final mix, I like to say a line said by Zelda Rubinstein in Poltergeist, "This house … is clean." For our dialogue editing process, we took a unique approach to handling radio and helmet-futzed lines. We went through rounds of iterations using a host of radio effects, IRs, speaker simulator plugins, including Speakerphone, to achieve the helmet FX you hear on the Helldiver soldiers, PA system, and NPCs over radio. Arrowhead wanted the audio to resemble the helmet effects in The Mandalorian, so we carefully crafted our helmet FX with this in mind. We started off printing each audio file with helmet processing for every pickup line. DO: In the end, however, we actually took the decision to process all futzed lines at runtime on the title. One big reason to do this was to free up localization whilst also enabling us to have more time and freedom to iterate on the exact processing chains we were using. If we were to