How difficult was it to record ‘the sound of silence’?

Amplitude Studios has put out the latest video in its Feature Focus series in which it gives some insight into the sound design in its upcoming historical strategy game Humankind.

Feature Focus #6 is titled ‘Immersive Sounds’ (embedded below) and members of the development team talk about how they captured sound recordings from around the world to bring the various in-game biomes to life.

“With every terrain type, let’s take forests for example, we’re going to use what we call biophony, a concept invented by Bernie Krause, who is a bioacoustician,” said audio director and composer Arnaud Roy.

“This biophony is a mix of natural sound, found within nature itself,” he said.

International locations and environments were visited in order to capture the sounds needed to represent the 11 biomes in Humankind – places like the Vallée des Eaux Claires in France, secluded areas in Scotland, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks in the United States, and volcanic areas such as Mount Stromboli and Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy.

Amplitude Studios has also created an hour-long soundscapes video comprising different ambient nature sounds (embedded below).

The previous instalment of the Feature Focus series, titled ‘Composing the Music’, takes a closer look at the diverse range of musical instruments used to score the game’s soundtrack.

Humankind is scheduled for a 2021 release for macOS and Windows.