Roland Shaw (RS): Two things come to mind that, based on testing, I would suggest need a little more attention in VR - scale and detail. What were some hurdles - creatively and technically - you faced in designing and implementing sound for this VR game? Half-Life: Alyx is Valve’s ‘flagship’ VR game. Several of the older sounds have been dirtied-up a little bit just to give them a bit more frequency content in order to spatialize better with HRTF. HRTF processing relies on filtering frequencies to simulate our head and ears interfering with sounds in real life, but a lot of the older Half-Life sounds are quite simple in their frequency content so HRTF doesn’t work as well on them and they end up sounding kind of non-positional. One of the main challenges I found was getting the older sounds to fit into the world well. I would’ve been happy if we’d decided to not use any sounds from previous games and decided instead to only use those sounds for inspiration and a jumping off point, but I think I’m in the minority there. I think it’s a tricky topic because on the one hand a lot of those sounds are iconic and players feel a sense of nostalgia about them, but on the other hand some of them sound quite dated and in need of freshening up. Were there sonic elements or assets you could bring into Half-Life: Alyx from either of those games? If so, what were some challenges in getting those assets to fit into this game?ĭave Feise (DF): There definitely are sounds from the earlier games in Half-Life: Alyx. This game is set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Here, Valve sound designers Roland Shaw, Dave Feise, Kelly Thornton and composer Mike Morasky talk about designing sound for a virtual space, their approach to Half-Life‘s unique creatures and weapons, creating the Gravity Gloves, using Foley to make the NPCs feel real and to sell the player’s physical presence in the space (because a player only see their hands), designing proprietary sound tools for the Source 2 engine, and more! There are layers upon layers of sonic details to satisfy both the quest-oriented players driven to beat the game quickly and the explorer-players who want to turn over every leaf in the game. If you drop a glass bottle, it rewards you with a lovely smashing sound. The spaces are alive with light buzzes and water drips. According to sound designer Roland Shaw, when Valve’s first VR experience was created they found that players were interested in interacting with objects in the environment and so they wanted to seriously expand on that for Half-Life: Alyx. That detail is just one of the many lovingly crafted sonic joys that live in this virtual world. Did you know there’s a playable piano in Half-Life: Alyx? And there are videos on YouTube of players plinking out songs on it? Search “half life alyx piano” and prepare to be amazed.