Hearing Sounds Through Different Ears: A Video Game Case Study

This article seeks to demonstrate that different listening vantage points and types of listeners are established in open world video games to create meaning and immersion. Using Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014) as a case study, I analyze its sound image through Smalley’s concept of space-form (2007) to find these points. Even though all sound is spatialized in the sound-image, not all sounds are located in the 3D navigation space. Positioned and non-positioned sounds (in reference to the player character) lead us to understand there’s a combination of both peripatetic and fixed listeners during the gameplay. In the case study, by soundwalking in one of the game’s zones we conclude there is an overlap of listening vantage points that do not refer to the same space. This helps the players have a holistic view of the soundscape, making it more favorable to express meaning through the ambience’s sound design.

1. 1.

   Hambleton’s take on Westerkamp’s Soundwalk opens the interpretation to soundwalk in virtual spaces. She uses soundwalk as a method to map out the soundscape [9]. For other articles using soundscape as a method in analyzing video game sounds, see Galloway [8] and O’Hara [13].

2. 2.

   This is the term used by Smalley in [15], to delineate a point from where the listener will turn his attention to the sounds in space. The reason to not choosing a term like “point of listening”, analogous to ‘point of view’, can be a way to reinforce that the vantage point is also about perceiving or observing space and not simply hearing.

3. 3.

   ‘Transmodal’ is not the only term possible, but it is the one Smalley uses. Lars Elleström [7] will refer to it by a sensorial multimodality in the first chapter in the book Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality. Chion will call it transsensorial [5]. I also recommend read-ing Rodolfo Caesar’s writings on sound’s transsensoriality [2] and [3].

4. 4.

   For a more original reference, see [6] chapter 9, footnote 14 at page 259. Chion has a transcription of the definition of the term sound-image.

5. 5.

   Immersive Sound: The Art and Science of Binaural and Multi-Channel Audio [14] has various articles on spatialization and you can find a more in-depth discussion there. The point is that spatialization creates a more refined space by using virtual outputs in various directions, but the output devices used are mostly the same – the same ‘frame’ or boundary is used.

6. 6.

   This intimacy can be thought of as immersion or as Modena and Parisi argues, a process of becoming. It is relevant to understand that camera and character’s orientation can create or tear down the distance between player and avatar, but the distance is always present causing friction. Perhaps this is a good point to further the topic.

7. 7.

   “Space around the listener” p.48 – Smalley [15]

8. 8.

   In DAI, the camera is the egocentric reference for the sound receiver, but in some other games this might not be the case. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015), for example, utilizes the PC orientation as reference until the camera crosses a certain angle, then the camera serves as reference.

9. 9.

   You can hear the PC’s positioned bow attacks coming from the left side of the image in Loopy Longplays’ video at 14:02–14:10, for example. < https://youtu.be/hvH1Hy7HEwg?t=842 > 

10. 10.

    See the How Big is the Map? – Walk across DAI video at 1:38:38–1:38:45 < https://youtu.be/3nqyCpkJV18?t=5918 > 

11. 11.

    To mention the ones left out: There is no use for performed space and its components, nor the spaces that are related to cause because all of the ambience’s sounds have implied causes. The movements of approach and recession is given by the moving of the PC in relation to source or vice versa and were used to understand volume and positioning but they are obvious. Ouverture and enclosure can be noticed by entering and leaving buildings or when hearing loud thunder noises but besides that they were not very important for the analysis either, the PC’s navigation will naturally create approach, recession, ouverture and enclosure in the sound image.

12. 12.

    Like the wind, can also be understood as a permanent texture, but the chatter is confined to the camp’s limits while the wind’s texture can be heard throughout the whole map zone.

13. 13.

    Smalley defines it as “a temporary rupture in ongoing proximate space thereby permitting access to a distal view”.

14. 14.

    It’s possible to add and remove listening vantage points while dealing with the non-positioned and acousmatic ones, but the overlapping of virtual non-positioned listeners makes them sound as if they are one since they belong to the same sound image and share the same reference. There is also the possibility of adding vantage points through using extra audio output devices, offering distinguishable fixed listeners (as it occurs with the inbuilt speaker of PS5’s controller).

15. 15.

    There is a debate on the pejorative use of the term to refer to this genre. Elizabeth Hambleton [6] proposes ‘navigable narratives’ as an alternative and after reading other sources on the subject, this is the one I preferred.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22290-255, Brazil

   Gabriel Dargains Gonzaga

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriel Dargains Gonzaga .

Editors and Affiliations

1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

   Anthony L. Brooks

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