Covenant Weapons Sound Design

Games Halo Infinite
1

I love the UNSC sound design. AR slaps, BR is beefy, commando packs the perfect punch, sidekick is buttery yet snappy.

I’d just wish the Covenant weapons sounded more distinct. I’m all for the “classic sounds” but not just for nostalgia, for audio distinctness too. Even my non gamer friends could recognize a needler / plasma pistol sound in Reach or 3. We’ve seen plenty of feedback on the hammer so I’ll just make a short wishlist, please share constructive thoughts or add to this! Halo infinite is shaping up to be a great game. ++Note I actually like the sound of the pulse carbine - a lot

  1. Make the hammer sound more like halo 3 & reach. It just sounds like you’re crushing gravity at your free will, so damn classic. HI sounds too flat like a regular hammer
  2. Make the needler sound less like a bullet based weapon and more like glass. This was addressed in the 343 feedback learnings
  3. Make the plasma pistol sound more like plasma, less sharp and harsh. From a distance it’s too similar sounding to a UNSC weapon - and the hum when charged isn’t prominent enough
  4. Generally making plasma sound a bit softer, cutting on some of the high frequencies (again for distinction and in-line with their goal of making damage types more important for the game)
2

What I realised from Infinite is that the Plasma weapons sound spitty

They sound like the shots are spat out on releasing.

Older Halos had them have a whine to them so they sounded laser-ish.

The biggest offender of this spitty sound is Halo 4’s Storm Rifle.

3

> 2535439803298950;2:
> What I realised from Infinite is that the Plasma weapons sound spitty
>
> They sound like the shots are spat out on releasing.
>
> Older Halos had them have a whine to them so they sounded laser-ish.
>
> The biggest offender of this spitty sound is Halo 4’s Storm Rifle.

Yes I totally agree. Like the plasma pistol in 4-5-infinite kind of sounds like someone yacking up a storm on release instead of the most satisfying sound ever (combat evolved for comparison)

4

the gravity hammer still sounds like a toy version of its H3 counterpart and the needler needs that classic glassy explosion on supercombine.

one criticism I have about UNSC weapon sound direction is that all the weapons sound too similar to eachother, especially from a distance. in prior halos I never had a difficult time being able to tell what I was being shot by as every weapon had a super distinct sound. now when I’m getting lasered down from across the map I genuinely can’t tell if its a pistol, AR or BR because the weapon sounds don’t communicate much.

5

Agreed.