30 years of Game Audio and counting

30 years of Game Audio and counting.

8bit to 64bit and beyond.

I’ve been fortunate to work on some iconic titles such as Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country.

I’m going to look back at my video game audio history and a look at where game audio might go next.

Video game audio was once the domain of surpassing audio hardware limitations imposed by the integrated sound chips.

Music and SFX were simply not possible unless the audio-people had a deep understanding of the technicalities of early video game hardware.

Fast forward to 2022, and there are seemingly very few boundaries for producing amazing audio.

Thanks to middleware such as WWise and F-Mod deeply integrated into Unity and Unreal, anything is possible.

Yet, very often, sound is still often regarded as less important than the visuals.

Has video game sound lost its’ identity?

Where are the new sonic signatures and iconic themes?

Even the new generation of gamers often reference early SNES or Playstation tunes  & SFX.

Are new games less rememberable?

Or perhaps, now we can have every sound we possibly need in a video game:

Has Audio, simply got lost in the Mix?

BIO: David Wise

I started my music career in a music shop selling drums, before being persuaded to sell music computers instead. Apparently, they were the future.

Here, Tim and Chris Stamper from Ultimate Play The Game, came in for a demonstration of the latest hi-tech music equipment. They purchased the equipment and offered me a job at Rare Ltd creating music for the 8bit Nintendo Entertainment System

I went on to work on the Battletoads series, before working on the Donkey Kong Country series for the Super NES and more recently, for the Nintendo Switch.

I have worked on over 100 games, including: Diddy Kong Racing, Starfox Adventures, Tengami, Snake Pass and Yooka Laylee.

I have been an independent audio contractor since 2010 and continue to enjoy a career working on music and sound design for video games and digital media.