If Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be officially available for everyone on October 28, whether on PlayStation, Xbox or PC consoles, this month of September still promises its share of surprises since will take place on September 15 the world reveal of its Multiplayer.
For the occasion, Stephen Miller, Director of Sound Designdelivered an exclusive interview with our colleagues from JVC to tell more about all the work he and his team have done to make the atmosphere of the game ever more realistic.
100,000 recorded sounds for Modern Warfare 2
Developing a video game takes time, and if we tend to forget certain phases as a player, everything related to sound design is essential for a title. For Modern Warfare 2, Stephen Miller said there was no less than 100,000 different sounds for the Infinity Ward FPSand although the developers decided to reuse some already existing ones, the latter said that they had changed practically everything in order to bring back “overall freshness.“However, with regard to some weapons, they had to borrow a few files from what is called a professional sound bank, since, as we can imagine, there are a few weapons that they do not have. However, they make it a point of honor to do as many things as possible themselves, even if it means using older weapons to obtain sounds that are close to them.
As we were able to discover a few days ago through a short presentation video, the teams have to travel to record the different sounds of weapons in all possible situations, and for that, they must take certain elements into consideration such as the fact that the area in which they are located should not be too flat, that there are reliefs, so that the different sounds reverberate. Otherwise, Stephen Miller also said that the area had to be quiet to be able to record long enough sound sequences : about 20 seconds for a weapon shot. According to him, the microphones are so sensitive that they can record the noise of car passages yet located 5 km from them.
Modern Warfare 2 takes advantage of new technologies
For this new opus, Stephen Miller said Modern Warfare 2 takes advantage of new technologies, including a new inclusion system : “when a noise comes from outside a building from inside a room and you are outside, the sound will be integrated naturally.But then, is there a difference between the sound creation of the campaign VS that of the Multiplayer? Well not that much. According to him, the sounds are largely shared, but the campaign takes advantage of so-called more custom sounds for very specific moments of the game such as slow-motion scenes. In addition, they have a “better control” to be able to anticipate certain scenes.
Finally, with regard to PS5 players, Stephen Miller assured that the teams had worked with very specific technologies for the console, with in particular 3D Audio. According to him, it will be a different experience than a game with stereo sound.