Agenda
Dominating the Battlefield With Sound: Designing Audio as Tactical Information in 'Arena Breakout: Infinite'
Haoran Ma (Lead Sound Designer, Tencent)
XiangYi Wang (Game Audio Designer, Tencent)
Pass Type:
Academic Pass, Festival Pass, Game Changer Pass, Indie Pass, Start-Up Pass -
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Track:
Audio, Design
Audience Level:
Intermediate
Format:
Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: Intermediate
In Arena Breakout: Infinite, sound does not simply support combat; it helps define the tactical game. Every action produces information. Moving, reloading, searching, healing, and firing can reveal a player's position, while equipment, timing, environment, and deliberate noise can change who hears what and when. This session examines how the audio team builds that exchange of information into a playable system. It covers the relationship between listening and exposure, tactical headsets as equipment that changes information access, gunfire as a tool for reading engagements across the map, and ambience, masking, and sound traps as ways to conceal or manipulate player activity. Using shipped examples and live listening comparisons, the talk shows how audio drives positioning, equipment choices, risk assessment, deception, and the moment-to-moment contest for information that sits at the heart of every raid.
Takeaway
Attendees learn how to design sound as a tactical system rather than simply as gameplay feedback. The session shows how listening, exposure, equipment, gunfire, masking, and deliberate noise create a contest over information that continually shapes positioning, risk assessment, deception, and tactical decisions.
Intended Audience
This session is for sound designers, audio directors, game designers, and gameplay programmers interested in using sound as part of a game's tactical rules rather than as feedback alone. No specialist audio knowledge is required, though experience with systemic or competitive games will help.