Unlock Audio Create the Sounds of Gotham in 'Batman: Arkham Shadow'

Although 'Batman: Arkham Shadow' was first announced in May, Unlock Audio has been eagerly anticipating this milestone since their collaboration with developer Camouflaj began.

Immersion was the primary goal of Unlock Audio's sound design, from enveloping players in the grander sounds of Gotham to infusing a rewarding level of depth and detail in more intimate settings.

A City in Dynamic Chaos

From your roost upon Gotham's rooftops in the role of the Caped Crusader, you'll begin to notice significant shifts in the vibe of the city through sound cues alone.

As your story unfolds and tensions in the seedy underbelly of the city inevitably grow, so too will the level of chaos or threat you sense around the dark corners and along the alleyways you'll prowl.

Unlock Audio approached the design of ambient city noise with four degrees of audible chaos to transport players fully into the ever-evolving world of Gotham.

A Story Behind Every Door

Gotham is a populated place, and Unlock Audio's team knew environments like housing complexes should feel like they are teeming with life.

The company saw every door Batman passes as an opportunity to stoke realism with lively sounds that bleed past the thin veil of privacy of cheap apartment walls.

These little vignettes were an indulgence allowed by early creative involvement, which gave time and space to chase a heightened spatial realism as a base for the signature Arkham gameplay players expect.

Rigorous Realism

The realism pursued in Arkham Shadow's sounds extends to the treatments of many interactables & destroyables that players will encounter throughout the game.

A drive for immersion meant not only getting textural sounds just right, but also tooling how these sounds uniquely reflect Gotham when interacted with.

"Arkham Shadow is host to some of my favorite sounds I've ever created, largely because this game challenged me to approach my sound design in new and unusual ways."

Some sounds took over a week of toying with resonance and collisions using tools like Corpus in Ableton, which allowed them to imbue the audio with physical modeling characteristics.

Reflecting Arkham at its Core

It's a daunting task to step into a franchise as storied as 'Batman: Arkham'.

Every creative decision rides on meeting the high expectations of players of the core games and doing justice to the legacy of Batman.

As a sound designer, it's easy to get caught up in the idea of putting your stamp on a new game through reinvention, but there's an incredible challenge and reward in preserving what people already know and love about what's come before.