Across the current gaming landscape, it is becoming more and more common that grandiose musical scores are employed into our favourite titles to set the tone and create amazing atmospheres. This may be a high octane battle scene where heavy drums and booming brass tones are used to amp up the player. Or alternatively, it may be soft, sporadic notes as you stand over a fallen party member and curse yourself for farming low level enemies to level them up.

With the prominence of gaming and the commercial success that has came with that, developers have been able to create increasingly detailed and thematic soundscapes. Allowing players to immerse themselves further into the fantasy worlds that they inhabit. It seems not long ago when the best we could hope for musically was a 16 bit array of noise that you would most likely find as someones doorbell in today’s climate. Now however, gaming soundtracks are winning awards and the hearts of many and show real competition to the likes of cinematic soundtracks. With those such as indie hit journey, or 2018 blockbuster God of War winning awards for their efforts.

With that in mind though, there are times in gaming where voice acting, musical scores and sound effects are simply not necessary and silence speaks louder than any of those could. whether its to give the player an eerie chill down their spine, a moment of respite or even a long walk to ponder recent events. Even virtual characters need their head spaced now and again. So here are some prime examples of when games turned the volume to zero.

Traversing open worlds – Depending on what sort of mood or over arching theme a game is trying to convey, their may be a track that simply keeps you moving forward or perhaps a soundscape that adapts and changes depending on events that occur such as fight scenes, random events or discoveries. However, some games love to make you feel small. Almost insignificant to the bigger picture that is the grand world surrounding you. Whilst others simply want you to feel completely alone as you trudge along to your next destination.

an example of the former is the beautiful and whimsical world of The legend of zelda: ocarina of time. When link is sailing upon the open seas with nothing on the horizon in any direction and the only audible sounds are the occasional wave lapping against the hull of your boat, it’s very apparent that the world that you are navigating is much greater than you. You are a spec, a drop in the ocean and yet you are calm. It’s a peaceful moment that humbles the player and also serves to create a great respect for the sprawling landscape to explore.

An example of the latter, that serves to perhaps unsettle the player and make them feel alone in a barren land is Shadow of the colossus. Within this game there are several long winding journeys you will have to make to the various giants that inhabit the realm and throughout these moments between the action, the player is left to ponder the actions that have just transpired. Perhaps why they decided to murder a creature that didn’t seem to want to battle, or why they were off to do it all over again. The lack of a score and only the thumping of your horses hooves upon soil serve as an ominous reminder that you are alone with only your horse and your thoughts for company.

Horror – As you might expect, silence is one of the most prominent techniques within the genre of horror. Minimal sound serves as a method to put emphasis on all other aspects. As humans, we are programmed to respond to sound, such as a car exhaust letting out a sound akin to a gunshot causing a massive rush to adrenaline to surge within you involuntarily. Its a natural reaction and those who create horror titles thrive on exploiting this.

Games often like to exploit this through emphasising the interactive nature that the medium provides. When the sound and score is sucked from the game, all that is left is the core mechanics. Therefore, if the player is in full focus on what they are doing, if anything were to happen they would be fully engrossed on the scene as it happened, adding to the shock value.

Games that put this into practice are the likes of Silent hill or dead space. The former unconventionally often uses no sound at all for long periods of the game as you walk through the foggy town of Silent hill. The player is left to navigate through the dense fog in complete silence only for sharp sounds from the pocket radio indicating danger, shocking the player and sending them into a frenzy to find what lurks in the mist.

Dead space also has long periods or eerie silence but doesn’t hide the enemies behind a vale of white fog, but in a lot of cases, hides them in plain sight. The developers use the lack of sound to add to the terrifying atmosphere of course, but also use it as a false sense of respite. It allows players to believe they have defeated all that was trying to hurt them, so they proceed to loot the corpses or reload weapons and so some inventory management. Only for the once dead creature to spring to life again and take them by surprise. Not to mention quiet periods that can be interrupted by the same enemies bursting from the roof or walls without warning. It does this periodically so that not all silences are dangerous ones but enough that you can never truly trust the silence.

As a game mechanic – Now this is one that is seldom seen in gaming. Perhaps that is because the technology was never there for the possibility to occur and even when it became available, it’s not exactly a conventional idea to begin with. Alien isolation not only does what the previously mentioned horror games do well but they also use silence as a tool in game. They achieve this through the use of a microphone. When the player is hiding from the alien antagonist that Amanda Ripley is running from all game, being quiet in game is essential to survival. In addition though, with the use of this optional mechanic, the player can add a new level of immersion through having to be quiet themselves. It adds to the level of tension throughout, the player finds themselves holding their breath when hiding from the monstrous alien and the fact that this can all be undone by your dog barking out the window makes it all the more intense.

Role playing – Although this may be a bit of a cheat entry, it has to be said that the silent protagonist is in it’s own way, using silence as a method of storytelling, not to mention allowing the player to project onto the character they are controlling. Through these characters being somewhat of a blank slate within a world of bustling sound, dialogue and personality. It allows the player to project themselves into the character they control and make them in their own image.

The best examples of silent protagonists that allow for this are the likes of Half-life’s Gordon freeman, Jack from the first instalment of Bioshock or Claude from GTA 3. This works best for these types of narrative driven games with very well constructed and fully realised worlds as taking the voice from the player puts an emphasis on the world and story line with the player almost playing the role of an interactive passenger in a world greater than the protagonist of the story itself.

To convey emotion – Lastly is silences ability to almost mirror the speechlessness that comes with an emotional scene within the narrative. The standard place for this is usually when the credits roll but some games do their best to meld this with game mechanics to create a truly poignant scene. The most obvious example of this is the ending scene of MGS3: guns of the patriots. No spoilers here obviously but after a certain gut wrenching scene occurs the player is left to climb a seemingly never ending ladder as the credits roll and initially you are treated to a nice track of melancholy music. Yet after the music comes to a close, the ladder continues on and the player is left to ascend the ladder alone with their thoughts and the burden of what just transpired on their shoulders.

Kojima is a developer known to use this method to varying degrees of effectiveness, with new title death stranding offering a similar silent moment as you complete your last journey. However, within that particular scene the developer assumes that the player will instinctively know where to take the package which is simply hinted to be where you began the game. Meaning that if you weren’t all that invested or had a poor memory, the silence was soon diluted of it’s emotional qualities. However, when done well, the silent moments within games can truly cut deep within your soul without saying a word. Also honourable mentions to those scenes that aren’t silent but dial the volume down drastically for emotional effect. We’re looking at you Final Fantasy 7.

What are your favourite instances of silences within video gaming? Is there any interesting ways that developers use silence to enhance players gaming experience that we missed? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading.