00:00Sound plays an incredibly important role in Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
00:04and a particularly distinct part of the soundscape are the voices that Senua hears throughout her journey.
00:40As part of Senua's experiences of psychosis she hears voices, something that is very common
00:46with mental health difficulties and is experienced by huge numbers of people.
00:56I really had no idea what somebody who hears voices actually hears, I mean do they actually
01:02hear voices or is it more of an internal voice, I really didn't have a concept of what this
01:07would sound like, so we wanted to find out.
01:20We wanted to make sure that the voices the player hears are true to the types of experiences
01:25the voice hearers have.
01:27To do so we reached out to people with first hand experience including a group at Recovery
01:31College East, The Voice Collective, Rachel Waddingham from behind the label and experts in the field.
01:38My name is Charles Fernie-Ho, I'm a Professor of Psychology at Durham University and I lead
01:43a project called Hearing The Voice which is looking at the experience of hearing voices
01:47or to use its medical term, auditory verbal hallucinations.
01:51They know, they know, they know you're here, I'm watching.
01:55Hearing voices is an experience that is usually associated with severe mental illness, diagnoses
02:00such as schizophrenia, although it's also associated with a number of other psychiatric diagnoses
02:06and crucially we know that hearing voices is a part of ordinary life for many people
02:11who don't meet the criteria for mental illness.
02:19So when I first heard about the development of Hellblade and had a chance to engage with
02:23Ninja Theory about our research, I was really keen to do so because there's a huge problem
02:28of stigma associated with these experiences, they're misunderstood, highly stigmatised and
02:34that problem is particularly acute with younger people so these experiences tend to start happening
02:40to people in adolescence and early adulthood.
02:50Professor Charles Fernie-Ho really opened our eyes to the depth and range of voice hearing
02:55and invited several voice hearers to the studio so that we could show them the game and really
03:00talk through their experiences.
03:01It was really surprising to hear that these are characters that they live with that are
03:06important to them and in some cases they wouldn't want to live without.
03:09And the whole thing around you'll regret that, if that's a conversation that she can hear
03:13but it isn't directed to her, that gives that sense of more of what a real experience can be like.
03:18That's interesting.
03:19Yeah, that's very good actually.
03:21We discovered that people had a wide range of experiences from hearing just one voice coming
03:26from a distinct location to hundreds of voices that came from all different directions.
03:30And one thing that stood out to us was that for many people, the voices had distinct personalities
03:36and characters, and this was something that we wanted to bring through into the game.
03:40Please stop.
03:42You'll never come back if you go.
03:53You will die here, and all your suffering will have been for nothing.
04:03Binaural audio, where you can position the voices in space, reflects better what the
04:09voice hearers were telling us they heard.
04:12There are many different styles of voices that she hears.
04:15Some of them are fully developed characters.
04:18There are other characters that are based on people she once knew.
04:21Everyone hates her.
04:23She's cursed.
04:24And then there's the Furies, and these are disembodied snatches of words and sounds that
04:32torment her or sometimes assist her.
04:34Finding a style for the Furies was one of the major challenges of this project.
04:39So I asked for help from a friend of mine, Helen, that I knew, who was part of a theatre
04:45group called Brash Dash.
05:00Helen came to the studio with Abby and Mark, and together we worked out how we could make
05:06these voices come to life around her.
05:12Based on the experiences of the voice heroes, it felt like the voices were far more complex,
05:18interwining and chaotic than we originally envisioned.
05:30If we could represent not just the voice but the physicality of these characters interacting
05:35with each other, we might come up with something unexpectedly different.
05:41It's really hard not to follow the voices, that's so weird.
05:44The next job was to implement the voices in-game alongside the music and sound effects.
05:49This is the job of David, our Hellblade Audio Lead, working closely with Tamim.
05:55One of the important things in the Hellblade design is to transform what you see into what
06:03you see in Zenwa, and create a very particular sound universe.
06:07It's a very subtle difference.
06:09It's not what you expect to hear, but it's what Zenwa hears.
06:16It's a very subtle difference.
06:17You can feel it from watching.
06:19You can feel it from watching.
06:20I can feel it from watching.
06:20Having the chance to share with people who listen voices, has really helped us create a
06:29more real and personal mission.
06:32One of the things we did was to present to them 2 versions of the game, with different
06:38con molti disegni sonori, uno con la voce più limpia e come le diciamo normalmente
06:45e l'altro con la voce molto più processata, più caotica, come se fosse più ruido
06:51e curiosamente la che è più reale, più limpia e più clara è la che loro erigirono
06:57e la che realmente al final è la che più ti impacta e più ti llama la attenzione
07:02Contrariamente a quello che si suele fare in disegno sonoro, che è exagerare tutto
07:05e fare tutto che suene super grave, ci siamo arrivati con la versione più limpia
07:11e più umana al final
07:28È molto difficile rappresentare questa esperienza
07:32Quattro perché è così variede
07:34Quattro perché è così personale, intense, emotional experience
07:38È un testamento a come ninja theory
07:41Ha visto le ricerche, ho sentito lo che le ricerche sono dicendo
07:45Ma anche, crucialmente, ho sentito le esperti per l'experienza
07:49Quello che hanno come upo con è così compagno
07:51È per far la besta rappresentazione che ho visto
07:54Ho sentito in questo modo
07:54Che ci sono i giochi
07:56Ma è così
07:58È un altro modo
08:03Il si è che non era così
08:04In questo modo
08:05È un punto di un'importanza che credo che gli agimi possono offer
08:07Che è
08:07L'essere vivere in l'escrizione di qualcuno
08:10Qualche stessa
08:10Che percebesse il mondo molto diverso
08:12Per la maggioranza
08:14E capire
08:16and what they're going through in a way that no amount of reading about the subjects can do.
08:21Our work on Hellblade Sound continues as does development across the game.
08:25We thank you for your support so far
08:27and we look forward to sharing another update with you soon.
08:54Thank you for your support.
09:20Thank you.
Commenti