Could you describe the plot of Saints Row IV?
“You have become President of the United States and your Saints homies are now your cabinet. Unfortunately, the White House is invaded by aliens who abduct you and the powerful leaders of the world. You’re in an alien prison simulation and have to fight your way out and defeat a huge alien empire.”
What’s the job of audio director for a game?
“I work with Warner Bros on in-game sound design, our radio consultant on licensed music content, our composer for unique composition on the game, and our voice recordists. It’s audio’s job turn up the incredible art and gameplay up a notch.”
How does audio enhance Saints Row IV?
“The audio help immerses the player in all these crazy environments we put you in. The game is pretty nuts, so we had to think along the same wavelength with the audio. Some of it is based in a real world environment. In IV the world has been invaded by aliens – there’s alien technology. You’re in a computer simulated steel port. That allowed us a bit of artistic license to go a bit further than we would have in previous titles.”
Did you tailor each sound specifically for each gun?
“Yes. For a lot of the weapon audio we worked with Warner Bros –some of the guys who made sound for the Matrix films. The Black Hole gun is incredibly fun gun. The Dubstep gun is one of my favourites – it plays dubstep music and things happen in tempo with the music. People start dancing. Cars bounce up and down. We have laser-like weapons. There are also all kinds of alien environments, so we got to do cool ambient sounds.”
How does someone create the sound of an explosion without damaging anything?
“Imagination and really good sound libraries. The visual effects guys create really beautiful and chaotic explosions. You watch it until you start to hear something in your head. A lot of the time we’ll use synthesisers or electronic software to add crazy odd sounds to explosions. In real life a lot of these sounds are almost plain. It’s our job to stylise it.”