There are various elements that make up the player experience within video games. Visuals, story, level design, and audio all meld collectively to facilitate and assemble an atmosphere that players can enjoy. Each of these elements can be talked about at length, but I would like to focus on what I see as the driving force of game atmosphere: audio.

Audio is a foundation for making a game world believable. You can convey emotion to a player, build up soundscapes to flesh out the game world setting, and create an ominous sense of dread, all without lighting up a single pixel on the screen. In addition, certain applications of audio help the player in very practical ways.

Whether it’s an independent dev team or a large AAA studio, audio, such as objects, NPCs, or sound effects, within games is usually recorded through one microphone. Post-production allows for some directionality to be implemented and can sound quite good (just look at the sound design in Overwatch).

As opposed to regular audio recording methods, Binaural recording requires two microphones positioned similar to a pair of human ears. This allows for a greater amount of accuracy and positional sound to be captured. The difference with this method compared to standard recording methods is that with the extra data being captured, the game now has a much greater range of audio captured, allowing for more options in development and a potentially better overall product.

3D sound—and more importantly binaural audio—helps a player immerse themselves deeper into a game and can provide crucial context clues to inform the player on what they should do. This also doubles as a tool since game audio is positioned as it would be in the real world in alignment with in game player position. It has been used more often in recent games and is making a comeback.

The workload for binaural audio, however, is much greater and sometimes costs more. Still, its application is appealing for developers due to the higher quality of audio that will leave a lasting impression on the player and can assist in grounding the gameplay experience.