Advertise on podcast: Audio Logs

In this episode, we're taking you to the battlefields of WARDOGS, the brand new tactical shooter from UK developper Bulkhead Studio. We met with audio director Sean Garavan and Albin Jansson from SweejTech who helped build some of the technology powering the game's sonic presentation. The game's just entered early access about a month ago, and so we thought it'd be interesting to get a better sense how things are going behind the scenes. We talked a lot about how the team has managed to meet player expectations, especially given the type of game they're creating. We also dove deep into the inner-workings of how early access has them approaching the evolution of the game, how they're reacting to player feedback, what ambitions they had before launch, and what they've got their aim on for the future of WARDOGS. Hope you enjoy!

Ready to go on an adventure? In this episode, we're taking you to mythical lands as we're chatting with composer Patrik Jarlestam about his work on Iron Gate Studio's Valheim. The game got its big 1.0 release back in September, so we thought it was a good time to talk with Patrik about his experience and how it evolved throughout the past 5 years of early access. We took a deeper-dive than usual when it comes to the nitty gritty of writing music here as Patrik took us on a journey that shed light on his interpretation of Viking music, how he came up with a tone that was inspired by nature and Scandinavia, and obviously so much more. Hope you enjoy!

How do you remake something as monumental as Halo: Combat Evolved? Join us as we sat down with Becky Allen, Sun Kim and Ryan Schaad from Halo Studios to hear about their story and how they approached this from the audio-perspective. This episode was recorded and scheduled to release before yesterday's layoffs impacting the many devs, including our three guests, at Halo Studios and across the XBOX umbrella. The whole situation got and I to think about whether even releasing this episode made sense. After checking in with Becky, Sun and Ryan, we all decided that it was best to move forward and to celebrate their work through these difficult times. Our goal will always be to shine light on the people and on their work creating the games we explore. This episode is no different. The context is sensitive, and so we're hoping to inspire and spread some positivity across the global game development community throughout these difficult times that keeps on delivering brutal blows to the entire industry with this episode. In the spirit of focusing on the bright side, we're humbled to be able to showcase the awesomeness of our guests for this Halo: Campaign Evolved episode, and we're sending all of our support to everyone that's been impacted. Taking a classic and modernizing it has to be a daunting challenge, so we spent a lot of time picking our guest's brains on the kind of thinking and philosophies they adopted when bringing this project to life. With 25 years worth of design and technical evolution between the original and this shiny new remake, the team had to assess what would work and what was best left untouched to ensure that the game felt both like a modern AAA 2026 game, while staying faithful to its source. Becky, Sun and Ryan were extremely generous sharing their many insights on all things audio. This was our first time covering the production of a remake, and so we both learned a lot from our conversation. This is a topic that isn't often talked about, so we're absolutely thrilled to be bringing it out to you all. As usual, hope you enjoy!

Number 20! We've reached a big milestone and wanted to take this opportunity to do something a little bit different. We met with Em Halberstadt and Nicholas Zhang from A Shell in the Pit to talk about their work on House House's latest game, Big Walk! This episode is really special as it's our first time chatting with our guests from within the game we're exploring! This led us down a bunch of unexpected paths that were absolutely a joy to dive in. Em and Nicholas gave us a peek behind the approach they went with to sound the game, how they gathered sounds that balanced the grounded and whimsical, how they wrangled the unpredictable with the in-game proximity chat system, and so much more. Hope you enjoy!

In this episode, we're joined by Andrei Castañon to talk about his work on the early-access life-simulation game, Paralives. Since Andrei is the sole audio developper on the game, he's had his hands on all things audio. He very candidly took us across on a journey sharing his experience joining the team, composing the score, designing the sounds, facing the many challenges that come from sounding a cozy life sim, creating the in-universe language, and a whole lots of insights on the realities of the indie game dev scene. Hope you enjoy!

For this episode, we got to meet some of the fantastic folks from Sony Interactive Entertainment who helped shape the amazing audio from Housemarque's latest game, Saros. Loïc Couthier, Lewis Everest, Lewis Barn, Fabio Liutina, Pete Reed and Juuso Tolonen all sat down with us to chat about the work they've put into making this cosmic-nightmare-bullet-hell such a wonder to listen to. We dive into their approach at designing sounds for UI, weapons, enemies, environments and bosses through a set of pillars that aimed to keep things cohesive, how they made use of Sony's DualSense controllers features to the fullest, their use of 3D audio technology, and so much more. The team was extremely generous when it comes to sharing the nitty-gritty details on their workflow and the likes, so perhaps this is one of our most in-the-weeds episode so far! Hope you enjoy!

This next one is surely going to put a smile on your face! We met with Raffaele Presciutti from TT Games to chat about the work that's been put into bringing Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight to life! Our conversation explores the many intricacies of designing the sonic experience of a Lego game set in the world of Batman. From defining the tone, level of realism, and slapstick of the aesthetics, all the way through the technicalities of bringing Gotham City's open-world to life, we cover a lot of ground here! We also talk about vehicle sounds, the role of music, and a whole lot more! Time to turn on the Bat-Signal! Hope you enjoy!

We're travelling back in time for this one. We recently met with Damian Czajka and Patryk Scelina to talk about their work on the recently released first-person-shooter, Mouse: P.I. for Hire from Fumi Games! We dive deep into how they managed to deliver an experience that feels like a love-letter to speaking cinema's early days, detective fiction and classic rubber hose animation! The team did a ton of research to ensure that the experience delivered an authentic feeling that feels modern and highly polished. We chat about balancing the level of sound degradation, working with clichés and expectations, crafting memorable musical themes, using props and tricks from the past to create memorable sound effects, and so much more! Hope you enjoy!

Get ready this is going to make you hungry as we dive deep into the lovely Dosa Divas! We're joined by Chandana 'Eka' Ekanayake, game director and co-founder of Outerloop Games, Anne-Marie Weber, sound designer and Ramsey Kharroubi, composer on this spicy narrative turn-based RPG as we explore a lot of topics we haven't tackled yet on the show. We talk about the realities of making games as an indie studio in the current state of the games industry, the importance of representation and VO casting. We obviously also talk in-depth game audio topics like researching tone and aesthetics in music and sound design, iterative designs, collaboration amongst various disciplines, foley and props recording, and so much more! Hope you enjoy!

This was a long time coming. We started chatting about making this episode with Josh back in early September last year. This was a month before we even announced Audio Logs. So finally, episode 14 is all about Sucker Punch Productions' latest, as we met with Rev. Dr. Brad D. Meyer, Josh Lord and Chris Walasek to chat about their work on the massive Ghost of Yōtei. Open world game design often rhymes with systemic approaches. And the team here absolutely came prepared with smart systemic designs that allowed them to craft such a wide range of sonic experiences at a gigantic scope without ever sacrificing quality in the process as a trade-off. We talked ambiences, foley, cutscenes, combat, quests, and a whole lot more. We hope you enjoy! _____ For more on the sound of Ghost Of Yōtei: On Foley: How This Woman Creates God of War’s Sound Effects https://www.wired.com/video/watch/obsessed-foley-joanna-fang A Sound Effect's interview with the team: https://www.asoundeffect.com/ghost-of-yotei-game-audio/ Brad's Blog: https://bradleymeyer.com/wp-core/

In this episode, we got to chat with Chase Combs, Jennie LaBonte, Jeramy Koepping and Keith Sjoquist from Bungie's audio team about their brand-new extraction shooter, Marathon. This is the type of games that is extremely demanding from an audio perspective, and so we knew that this would make for a wildly interesting subject to tackle on the show. We dive deep into the needs that came from the genre, explore how the team got to create its very distinct sounding aesthetics. Our guests were extremely generous when it comes to sharing their approaches and reasonings behind. This openness led us to talk about how they included mixing into their workflows, how they iterated on concepts and used feedback to balance things, how they've kept their aim set on player perceptions throughout the development of Marathon and so much more. We got pretty deep into the weeds here. Hope you enjoy!

We recently got the opportunity to chat with Raphaël Joffres, Maxance Playez and Olivier Penchenier from Sandfall Interactive to dive into the making of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's audio! The game needs little to no introductions at this point, having gathered critical and commercial success since its launch almost a year ago. Our conversation explores how things took shape from within through the lens of the sound team. We talk about everything ranging from the creation of made-up languages, music systems design, DnB influences on combat sounds, sounding cutscenes, and event knighthood! We also spend a good chunk of time talking about their paths and how being a relatively young team didn't prevent them from crafting a massive and highly expressive sounding experience! For those who might be wondering, we did our best to avoid spoilers without preventing us from tackling topics. So while we talk about a bunch of things that aren't encountered in the first few hours of the game, we made sure to keep things presented in a light that preserves the elements of surprise as best as we could. If you're curious and want to know more about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"s audio, once again, here's a link to Jennifer Walden's (A Sound Effect) amazing interview with the team: https://www.asoundeffect.com/clair-obscur-expedition-33-game-audio/

In this episode, we met with Senior Audio Director Mari Saastamoinen Minto, Audio Director David Jegutidse and Lead Technical Sound Designer Gonçalo Tavares from DICE to chat about how the latest entry in the series managed to look back at its legacy while also looking ahead as the team pushed new boundaries while creating the audio experience of Battlefield 6. We dive deep into the design and technical aspects of game audio here, exploring how the team decided to tackle everything related to the creation of an immersive soundscape that works well across all its game modes, the legacy of the Battlefield series, artistic and technological aspirations, what it takes to work as such a large scale, and so much more. We even got some behind the scenes footage from the various foley and field recording sessions! And before you even think about it, yes, we absolutely talk about footsteps. We got the team to break down the multitude of systems and creative solutions they came up with to ensure things felt accurate and in-line with player's expectations. If you're curious and want to know more about BF6's audio, here's a link to Jennifer Walden's (A Sound Effect) stellar interview with the team: https://www.asoundeffect.com/battlefield-6-game-audio/ #gameaudio #podcast #audiologs #gamedev #fps #battlefield #frostbiteengine #gaming #interview #bf6 #multiplayer

Kat Wenske and Chris Rickwood from Team Audio joined us to dive in the creation of Question Games" latest, the horror-deckbuilder The Killing Stone. This is the first time we get some co-workers/friends on the show, and these two brought a lot of fun to the table. While navigating the macabre and occult world of the game, they kept on lightening the mood with good vibes and fun detours all while offering us great insights on how they both crafted this very unnerving sonic experience! We talk foley work, scoring the game, collaboration as outsourcers, what it means to balance tone in horror, and so much more!

Returning guest Pat Tremblay, audio lead at Tribute Games joins us alongside Peter Berkman from Anamanaguchi to shine some light on the creation of Scott Pilgrim EX' amazing music-focused sonic experience! This is our first episode where we take a narrower focus and dive deeper into the weeds of things, in this case video game music. We chat about a lot of topics such as the history of chiptune music in the early 2000's, how tech limitations invited the team to come up with elegant (and musical) solutions to make sure everything came together harmoniously, the many questions that come up when composing a score this eclectic while ensuring nothing ends up feeling out of place and so much more.