Halo Wars Central

This is a record of the original interview, which can be found at Bungie.net.

As stated before, these two "Audio Guys" lord over much of the sound that goes into Halo Wars. Kevin is the Audio Lead and JD is the Senior Audio Designer.

Here is a wonderful mugshot of the two of them (I think you can shave your beard sir! It won’t take your mojo with it!).

Between them they create much of the audio we will experience when playing Halo Wars. Some of the sounds they are developing (or have developed) are the ambient sounds of the environment, shooting, explosions, the myriad of vehicle sounds and even the sounds that are made when you select units or options in the various menus.

It sounds like you two have been quite busy, what are you both responsible for that’s been keeping you both so busy?

[KM] I am the Audio Lead on the project, plus I am responsible for the VO.[Voice Over] JD is our Senior Audio designer and is responsible for the sound effects. Stephen Rippy has handled the music composition. Simply put, there’s a heap of content to create and manage. Much of that content is controlled by systems we are constantly tweaking. The soundscape of an RTS is incredibly dynamic and complex. Ensuring the audio is engaging and compelling takes constant tweaking and management. It’s fairly safe to say we’ll be rather busy until we go gold.

Do you actually engineer the sounds in the game yourselves, or are you able to pull them from some amazing sound library (i.e. Bungie) we are too ignorant to know about?

[KM] It’s very important to us to carryover the iconic elements of the Halo games. Halo Wars presents a lot of opportunities for us to develop our own identity as well; not only as a prequel to the Halo series, but also as an RTS. Our game perspective and scope requires that we design systems and create content unique to the RTS experience.

Can you estimate how many individual sounds are in the game?

[J.D.] At this stage in development we have over 5000 source files for sound and voice that when used in game create thousands of sound effects and dialog. Since we are the caboose in the development train this number will grow significantly near the end of the development cycle.
[KM] As far as dialog is concerned, we’re getting ready for three major VO sessions this summer that will exponentially add to that total as well.

What is your biggest concern when developing the sounds to use in Halo Wars?

[KM] As referenced above, being "Halo enough" is a concern, but it is something I think we’ve managed to do well. The other biggest concern is with managing the incredible amount of material that can be playing at any one time during a game. Not only do we have to make it aesthetically pleasing, but it must be informative as well. In Halo Wars, you can literally have hundreds of units on a screen, all firing weapons, mixed with battle dialog, UI sounds, and map ambience. Add in the music and it’s quite a lot to handle. We’re able to wrangle all of these elements using our sound tool/engine (Wwise) and our audio programmer (David Bettner). We’re fortunate to have both!
[J.D.] I have 2 primary concerns. How do I incorporate new sounds into the Halo cannon and will the Halo fan base be happy with the sound design? It is very important that all the sound effects have a common feel to them – we do not want to have our sounds stand out or not fit in with the Halo vibe.

What has been the most difficult sound to perfect? What made it so difficult?

[J.D.] The most difficult thing is not creating a single sound but how all the sounds interact with each other. As an example when I created the ambient sound system I knew we would not see birds but sonically I wanted all the birds to move and feel alive. So what we have is one bird call might be close to the listener position and the next call has the chance of varying degrees of distance from that position – or the bird may decide to stick around. Obviously in the real world birds and insects hear – so in the digital world if a skirmish erupts they stop being happy and when the skirmish ends they will slowly start talking again with staggered layers so one bird or insect will answer another.

How do you choose which things you need to make sounds for and which things are probably too trivial to include?

[KM] It’s all about gameplay. It’s very important to use to create an interesting and dynamic sonic atmosphere, but we have to always serve game play. We can’t let any of the sound design get in the way of or neglect the core elements of the game.

Have you felt pressured to get the ambience, created by the game sounds, to match up with previous Halo games?

[KM] Ambience is certainly one of the most important elements of game audio. The Halo games did a good job with creating those environments, and Halo Wars will continue in that same vein.
[J.D.] We are creating completely new worlds from a very different perspective of an RTS vs a FPS. We have studied and played the Halo games and when the worlds are similar, we match them as closely as possible so Halo fans will feel right at home.

Have you worked with Bungie on any of the sounds to ensure you make them as accurate as possible?

[KM] When we first took on the Halo IP, I spoke with Marty, Jay, and C Paul about our goals for Halo Wars. They’ve supported our needs from the start, and it is our goal to have Halo Wars succeed as an extension of the Halo universe on a whole.

Bungie has made it a habit of having a large dose of humor in the sounds and dialogue in their games. Will you be having humor as part of this game as well?

[KM] Any game that has Grunts in it has the humor switched on by default! Our lead writer, Graeme Devine, has been fully invested in continuing the character of the dialog in the Halo series of games. As part of that, we have just recently implemented a rather robust chatter system to carry over the feel of the battles (and event the calmer moments) in the Halo games.

Lastly, could you please phonetically spell the most impressive sound you all have made? :)

[J.D.] I’ll do better than that :) This may not be the most impressive sound in the game but it is very meaningful to me. Attached is a sample of one of the countless birds that create our bird ambience in Halo Wars and the source file – my 3 year old daughter.

Halo Wars - Ambient Bird - In Game
Halo Wars - Ambient Bird - Source

Interview added on 08/05/08