A recent blog post from Call of Duty has revealed that Treyarch has teamed up with Microsoft’s Project Acoustics system to bring significant refinements to the audio will be coming to Black Ops 6.
For a PvP multiplayer game like Call of Duty, auudio clarity is one of the most important things to have. It not only allows you to have improved positional awareness, it also helps make it a more immersive experience. Black Ops 6 is being packaged with a singleplayer campaign, the standard multiplayer PvP we all know and love from the franchise, and a PvE zombies mode. Treyarch is hoping to further elevate these experiences and offer gamers with the best headsets and speakers a bang for their buck.
Lead Audio Designer Collin Ayers says that the goal for the audio team was to have what they call an “adaptive battlefield” wherein the soundscape offers a more purposeful and directional information for the players.
Every weapon in the game has had redesigned or newly captured sound effects, which includes reload and firing sounds. And special care has been given to make sure that the distance of where weapons have been fired and where enemies are coming from will be clearly telegraphed to the players. “We want to make sure that the soundscape in this game will adapt to each player as they play, creating a living and breathing play space.” Collin says.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, players can expect improvements to adaptive audio, spatial reverb, physics based acoustics, sound prioritization, HRTF support, and asymmetrical hearing compensation. “Gunshots and grenades will realistically fill the space around them… Footsteps will echo down long hallways, and the sound of rain and crickets chirping will come in through open windows and holes in the wall,” Expert Audio Engineer William Cornell says.
The new improvements are taking the concept of 3D audio to new heights. But it also comes with the concern of being fed too many audio cues. Given how chaotic Call of Duty games can be, this is a valid worry to have but the folks at Treyarch understand it well enough to offer a solution. “Our new priority system assigns a dynamic priority number to every single sound which can then be adjusted live in the entire mix,” says Collin. This means that the game will dynamically prioritize audio cues that is more relevant to your current situation. An example is that an enemy running towards you will be clearer than the sound of teammates moving behind you.
The blog post goes into further details on each specific new system they have implemented which also includes a number of special video presentations that showcase what the improvements are running in real-time. Definitely worth checking out for you audio nerds out there.
With only days counting down to the global launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the audio improvements are just one of the many things Treyarch manages to keep surprising us with. Black Ops 6 will be launching on October 25, 2024 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.