Audio director on the “… two sides to the personality of the ghost ship.”

Developer Supermassive Games and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment have shared the second developer diary of the upcoming entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology.

The first episode in this new horror series is called The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan wherein a group of young Americans set off on a diving trip in search of a World War II wreck.

As discussed in the first developer diary, one of the game’s locales includes a ghost ship and Supermassive Games audio director Brian Pratt spoke about the different ‘forces’ at play on-board that vessel.

“There are two sides to the personality of the ghost ship,” Pratt explained. “Sometimes it’s a malevolent force and other times it’s a neutral force. But it’s always there in the scene, always talking to the character, always shifting, its metal hulk is always creaking.”

Pratt added: “The ship is always responding to the waves outside, the environment outside, and we try and bring this into the environment for the player when they’re inside the ship.

“The characterisation and the sounds that the characters are making in the environment is really key to conveying that sense of decay. They’re walking around in the environment in bare feet and the sounds they make as their feet hit the environment has to be sharp, edgy, rusty, and dusty – it’s a really hard sound to recreate.

“Every tap on a bulk head, every brush past a wall, it all has to convey that sense of decay, and that roughness, that real kind of sense of a hostile environment – it’s a great environment for horror.”

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is scheduled for a 2019 release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.