Resident Evil Village is an unsettling game that features a nine foot tall lady, ferocious lycans and all sorts of other unspeakable nasties that are determined to ruin your day. But you already knew that.
What you probably didn’t know is that certain sound effects were cut from Resident Evil Village because they sounded too realistic when using PS5’s 3D audio. Some sound effects sounded too grotesque while others were so realistic that they caused people to physically cringe.
Speaking to TechRadar, Resident Evil Village’s audio director Wataru Hachisako admitted that some of the effects the team tried had to either be toned down or removed from the game entirely.
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“There were some sound effects that we tried out, but they were a little too grotesque and realistic to keep in the game,” Hachisako-san said. “We had to either tone them down or get rid of them entirely. There were also some sounds of metal or wood rubbing together or clashing which put some people’s teeth on edge, so we had to take care with the 3D audio positioning of those!”
Resident Evil makes use of PS5’s 3D audio to create a sense of space and sound “that emulates real life incredibly well” says Hachisako-san, but no one wants to hear the sound of someone (or something) running their nails down a chalkboard, for example. Some sounds are best left unheard, then.
Sounds of the Village
We were particularly impressed with the use of the PS5’s 3D audio and said in our Resident Evil Village review: “The true star of Resident Evil’s horror is its audio. It’s perfectly suited to a horror game such as Village, particularly in more claustrophobic buildings, as it allows you to hear every drip in a dungeon and each raspy breath of an adversary.”
The spatial audio technology was also used to great effect in Returnal, a PS5 exclusive that’s hard-as-nails but easy on the eye. Check out fascinating interview on how PS5 3D audio takes games like Returnal and Resident Evil Village to the next level, as we asked Capcom, Sony and Housemarque about the new technology and how it’s changing the way we experience games on PS5.
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