Gameplay in support, for a good fifty minutes, the developers returned to the sound design of the game which takes advantage of new technologies.
This Friday, March 11, Motive Studios held a livestream dedicated to the remake of Dead Space and more particularly its sound design.
After confirming a release of the game for early 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series and PCas rumors had whispered, the developers presented a succession of tech demos to showcase the sound design of the software completely reworked using new technologies. Spatialization, sound occlusion, reverberation… it’s all there and it’s already freezing the blood.
Obviously, no need to specify it but all the same, the visual of the few gameplay sequences is absolutely not representative of the final version.
Towards total sound immersion thanks to 3D audio and improved audio occlusion
While comparing the remake to the original Dead Space, the studio therefore described to us a little about the operation of the techniques used and the improvements they made to the software.
It’s first the displacement of sound in space which has been honored through two early game sequences. The opportunity for us to listen to a clear improvement in the sound design which now transcribes in a rather realistic way the path that different sounds take and the interaction that obstacles have with them, which can “block” or “deflect” them.
More powerful weapons
Next, the Plasma Cutter and the Assault Rifle took center stage. These now take advantage of multiple audio layers and frequencies, to enhance immersion and the sensation of impact. And this will obviously be the case for all the weapons in the game, which have all had the right to a redesign. The result looks more than promising as it stands, despite the game’s pre-alpha status.
A larger-than-life Isaac who speaks!
Finally, the developers have focused on the ALIVE system, an in-house program aimed at making Isaac as realistic as possible. Breathing noises, shortness of breath, battle exhaustion sounds, etc. all these parameters are in fact regulated by a system that takes into account the physical and mental state of our hero.
The most convincing example is when he speaks, because yes Isaac regained his speech in this remake, the tone of his voice will change depending on his condition. He will be out of breath after running or fighting, or will have a shaky voice after being startled, for example by a jumpscare.
But this is only a small glimpse of what the ALIVE system brings to the sound design of our poor engineer, see yourself in the video below.
A bit of gameplay to get you in the mood
To conclude this live, Motive offered us a very short gameplay sequence to highlight its sound design. A gameplay of a few minutes, with a visual still in progress, which highlights everything that was seen at the start of the stream. Here there is no need to draw a picture, the video speaks for itself, the atmosphere promises to be high-flying.
The hardest thing now is to wait until the release, or at least until you have real gameplay clean as a whistle.
