00:07I believe sound is a critical storytelling tool in any form, whether it's film or TV or video games.
00:14So you have the visuals, but without sound to help sell those visuals, the immersion is completely broken.
00:20I think the overall dark fantasy vibe of the game, coupled with the idea of this curse that's infecting the
00:26creatures of Isla,
00:26goes hand-in-hand with using metal influences in the overall sound direction for the game.
00:31Representing the idea of cursed creatures with distorted metal vocals, it was a really effective way of storytelling.
00:38You can really feel it in some of the characters, especially characters like Herotrola.
00:42That's one thing that I think that makes the character great, is you can hear the humanity in him, but
00:47something's definitely wrong.
00:49When the player finds his dialogue pickups in his cave area, his vocal delivery is fairly clean and clear,
00:54but as his corruption progresses, his voice starts to get more and more distorted and gritty.
00:59Eventually, when the player fights him, the full effect of those distorted metal vocals are shown.
01:07When I got the lore, I tried to captivate everything that they needed to bring the character to life
01:15and also represent the genre the way that I believed I should,
01:20by doing staple sounds that I used from song to song and my own kind of identity to the character.
01:28For like a cursed or tormented being, I really wanted to play on the viciousness of the efforts and the
01:39drunks and stuff.
01:40You're not just trying to achieve a goal, you're doing so with force, with anger, with heat.
01:47There was a couple of those elements to it for me.
01:51Being a boss in a video game is just really rad.
01:55You can't ask for a much cooler experience.
01:59There are characters where we did actually use two different performers to create their sound,
02:04to kind of blend together and drive a little bit of a chorus effect.
02:09The main one would be Sapphire.
02:11We wanted to make sure we had a scream that sounded ghostly and otherworldly.
02:17My experience voicing Sapphire was really interesting.
02:22I have a very like set way that I do screams and so recording vocals for a video game helped
02:29me explore different ways to create screams.
02:33I was really excited to like play around and see what kind of sounds I could make.
02:39I think Sapphire's design really did it for me because I am a very visual person.
02:43She had these chains on her and you could just tell that she was like tethered to something that felt
02:51deeply painful to her.
02:54I tried to really convey the fact that she might be evil, but she is somebody who is suffering.
03:03For Sapphire specifically, she is the conjurer of screams.
03:07So it's raw, it's just power, as loud as you can go.
03:12So that's how I approached it, was just thinking about how raw and powerful The Conjurer of Screams is.
03:22Whenever we heard some of the recordings coming back, it was pretty obvious that these fit well.
03:28Like Lofi was our first boss and he sounded so good.
03:31So once we took those gurgles and screams and we turned them into a giant menacing fish, we knew right
03:37away it was going to be great.
03:40So with the texture I was going for, I wanted it to sound slimy, wet, you know, because it's a
03:46fish dude.
03:47That's also what kind of influenced the emotion with it.
03:50If you were a fish and all of a sudden you have humanoid appendages, you're on land, you're breathing air,
03:56you're existing with the weight of gravity.
03:58I wanted even the smallest things to have this big vocal push, like it really hurt to exist.
04:09To me, the most challenging part of turning humans into creatures is the processing.
04:15Obviously, we're using EQ and compression and distortion and we're just using your basic processing tools.
04:21I work in Reaper and I will then bring the audio into Wyze.
04:26We create multiple variations of every sound and finally we bring it into Unreal Engine.
04:30And by that time, the processing's already done and we're just working more on timing and how the sound effect
04:37is actually triggered.
04:42Hearing those gritty, distorted screams and roars really gave me the confidence to push those metal influences in the soundtrack,
04:49particularly for those boss fight sections.
04:51It's been really fun to try and really hit hard with those metal inspirations, creating some heavy-hitting rhythm guitar
04:58sections,
04:58alongside those typical intense drum groups.
05:01So, for me, when we discussed the idea of bringing in metal vocalists for creature sounds,
05:06I was really excited to try and bring that influence into the soundtrack too.
05:10I'm going to slide up this fader.
05:14I think Cristal's world embodies what a lot of metal is about.
05:19It's a little gothic, it's a little horror-based, but it's also heroic.
05:23And I think that having the metal injection is something that really lends to the overall experience for the player.
05:31I'd really love for players to feel that their journey through Isla is equally represented by the music,
05:36from the more somber, melancholic discoveries, to exploring the magical, whimsical towns,
05:42all the way through to the curse-filled areas and those intense boss fights.
05:46I really hope that players will enjoy this and that it helps them really immerse themselves in the world of
05:50Isla.
05:50But I thought of being able to imagine a little bit more so morbid fun.
05:58And I think,
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