Sound Effects

Games Halo Infinite
1

Some of the many sound effects I want to hear, also please don’t over complicate sounds by using to many during a certain mission, demonstrated by Halo 5 were too many things were happening and hurting our ears, keep it simple: from dead silence, birds, crickets and alienated wildlife, to a piercing explosive round. I will allow you guys to complete the list, just mention all your most mesmorising sounds, small or big:

■ Original, realistic bullet ricochet sound effects
■ Halo 3 Needler ‘shing’ sound occuring during melee attacks
■ Halo 3 sniper subtle ‘ting’ during melee attacks from pin hitting sniper
■ Halo 3 ODST soundtracks primarily, Halo CE soundtracks…
■ Flood sound effects from Halo 3
■ Ambient sounds on the multiplayer maps, done best by reach
■ Sounds of engineers incorporated into soundtracks (Halo ODST)
■ Soundtracks that play when triggered by certain event (Halo ODST)
■ Brutes Halo 3
■ The sounds of lightning
■ The scary sound of the Banshee in Halo CE, easily done best by CE, as they patrolled you on the Halo
■ The sound of the iconic alien weapons, the high pitch shing of the needler in Halo Reach, the charge up sound of the plasma pistol in Halo CE
■ Soooo much more just can’t list them all, please help me

343i you need to come together and listen to each other, use the best ideas your employees haves created and be open.

As for the maps, they should be heavily inspired form all the maps before Halo Reach (some from Halo Reach, most are COD like), remember this word ambiance! Create ambiance.

2

Got agree with you primarily on the banshee there OP. I mean, it’s called a banshee yet it doesn’t make any loud scary noises outside of CE. And CE even manages to pull it off in a way which sounds natural to a sleek flying alien vehicle.

And just a thing I would like to mention is one of my favourite things about Halo 5, being the sound of the Spartan Suit. The fact that you can hear each different bits of the suit working, the leather squeaking and and wind rushing in sprint, the clicking of metal parts and mechanical parts all working together in the background of every moment in the game is so satisfying.

But OP, I think you nailed how ambience is supposed to be done. Overall I think in terms of total design Halo 5 was going for hardcore action movie which doesn’t really work for me, a focus on the war torn environment be it nature or urban with all these other alien sounds mixed in is classic and very fitting for Halo.

I could keep going on about the significance of sound design but I figure I should stop here.

3

In general, i think the Halo 2 Anniversary weapon sound effects were the best. They sounded like the old, while packing an extra punch. This is exactly how the modern Halo weapons should have sounded and looked, by the way. I also agree with your comment on the Banshee. A Banshee is defined as a wailing spirit for a reason, make it sound like one. In fact, no offence to 343i but all of their covie weapon and vehicle sound effects are just inferior in comparison to what was. They should have kept the H4 AR sound though.

4

They better keep the headshot pop sound from H5, so satisfying.

5

I feel like the sound effects and sound design from Halo 5 are very underrated. Yes; I admit the soundtrack isn’t the greatest or implemented in the best way, but there are definitely lots of sounds that you can appreciate in Halo 5.

In the army, I shot lots of weapons that resemble ones from Halo, and the sounds effects from Halo 5s weapons are pretty much dead on.

Grenade launcher: The pop noise from the grenade launcher is dead on, and the other day when I was Reach I noticed that Bungie didn’t even make an attempt to create the pop noise you hear when firing a real grenade launcher.

Rocket: The Halo 5 rocket launcher, even tho heavily cried about within the community, is actually a very accurate representation of the rocket launcher we used in the army, both visually and sound wise. The metallic cling sound is much more satisfying to hear than the wimpy gust of wind you hear from the Halo 1 and 2 rocket. Halo CEs was fine imo.

Sniper: another weapon in Halo 5 that for some reason gets lots of flack, while most people who say so have never even heard a .50 cal bullet fire before. Halo 5s sniper by far sounds like an actual sniper rifle. When I first played with it, I was very impressed by how accurate the punch sound is.

Those are only a few things I noticed, but of course like you there are sounds from the old Halos I do miss, but I think the reason they changed a lot of them is because they didn’t make sense. The banshees wind breaking sound is awesome, but you gotta ask yourself if it really makes sense from a sound designers perspective. The needless firing sound changed, but the supercombine shatter is still very good.

And i cant speak for you, but Halo 5 maps have given me the most balanced Halo experience of any games. Sure, their themes could definitely have been improved, and repeated use of certain items and styles did feel redundant, but gameplay wise I really feel like all the maps in Halo 5 are super balanced, whereas a lot of maps in Halo 3 and Reach were pretty unbalanced. A common flaw they both had was " you on top, you win." Of course, gaining the high ground is key to gaining an advantage in any shooter, but maps like Construct and Sword Base are ridiculous.

6

“And i cant speak for you, but Halo 5 maps have given me the most balanced Halo experience of any games. Sure, their themes could definitely have been improved, and repeated use of certain items and styles did feel redundant, but gameplay wise I really feel like all the maps in Halo 5 are super balanced, whereas a lot of maps in Halo 3 and Reach were pretty unbalanced. A common flaw they both had was " you on top, you win.” Of course, gaining the high ground is key to gaining an advantage in any shooter, but maps like Construct and Sword Base are ridiculous."
Hella Hot Trash
from the many games that i played i felt the maps were to small with the abilities of spartan charge ,sprint made it feel unbalanced to me

7

> 2535441777257585;5:
> I feel like the sound effects and sound design from Halo 5 are very underrated. Yes; I admit the soundtrack isn’t the greatest or implemented in the best way, but there are definitely lots of sounds that you can appreciate in Halo 5.
>
> In the army, I shot lots of weapons that resemble ones from Halo, and the sounds effects from Halo 5s weapons are pretty much dead on.
>
> Grenade launcher: The pop noise from the grenade launcher is dead on, and the other day when I was Reach I noticed that Bungie didn’t even make an attempt to create the pop noise you hear when firing a real grenade launcher.
>
> Rocket: The Halo 5 rocket launcher, even tho heavily cried about within the community, is actually a very accurate representation of the rocket launcher we used in the army, both visually and sound wise. The metallic cling sound is much more satisfying to hear than the wimpy gust of wind you hear from the Halo 1 and 2 rocket. Halo CEs was fine imo.
>
> Sniper: another weapon in Halo 5 that for some reason gets lots of flack, while most people who say so have never even heard a .50 cal bullet fire before. Halo 5s sniper by far sounds like an actual sniper rifle. When I first played with it, I was very impressed by how accurate the punch sound is.
>
> Those are only a few things I noticed, but of course like you there are sounds from the old Halos I do miss, but I think the reason they changed a lot of them is because they didn’t make sense. The banshees wind breaking sound is awesome, but you gotta ask yourself if it really makes sense from a sound designers perspective. The needless firing sound changed, but the supercombine shatter is still very good.
>
> And i cant speak for you, but Halo 5 maps have given me the most balanced Halo experience of any games. Sure, their themes could definitely have been improved, and repeated use of certain items and styles did feel redundant, but gameplay wise I really feel like all the maps in Halo 5 are super balanced, whereas a lot of maps in Halo 3 and Reach were pretty unbalanced. A common flaw they both had was " you on top, you win." Of course, gaining the high ground is key to gaining an advantage in any shooter, but maps like Construct and Sword Base are ridiculous.

I think what a lot of people don’t quite understand about the newer designs and sounds is why they were changed.

Yeah, the nostalgic sounds of the old weapons brings about familiarity, but the newer sounds exist because Halo 4 was a TURNING POINT in the way Halo existed because it was technically a new saga (probably shouldn’t have called it Halo 4, but I know why they did. It was a direct continuation of the story Halo 3 left off at but it was taking a different turn. Kinda like what Gears of War 4 did). A lot of people gave the new sounds and art style so much flak because it ‘wasn’t Halo’. I personally love the new graphics choice and sound effects. The more realistic weapon sounds get my senses tingling every time I shoot a UNSC sniper or a shotgun. To me it makes it feel so much more immersible.

8

all audio from H2 Anniversary. H2A has the best sounds of the entire franchise, its beautiful.