GL33k provided sound design, integration and audio direction.
First, the Arkham games have fantastic audio. We often refer to them as examples of true “triple A” game audio work, so the bar was set. It can be tricky acquiring and sorting through the existing sounds from previous games to reference or reuse established iconic sounds. This can be difficult without someone at the publisher saying “use these sounds for this, these sounds for that.” We want to make decisions that sound awesome in this game without stepping on the toes of any work established in previous games.
Second, we needed to learn a new engine to do the audio integration, the Bluepoint Engine (BPE). Armature Studios has their own in-house version of BPE, and excellent engineers who were always quick to help us with special hooks in code to attach sounds to. Armature uses Wwise audio middleware with BPE, which GL33k has been using for years, so we at least came in with a strong familiarity with that. We needed to work with Armature engineers to smooth some parts of the Wwise integration out and our prior experience came in handy.
Lastly, the game was developed for handheld systems: the 3DS and Vita. Developing audio for handheld systems comes with a bunch of challenges: limited memory, mixing for tiny speakers and headphones, which we’d done a lot of in the past. Wwise is a huge help in that department, too. But then you add in the fact that we’re taking this Arkham franchise, known for ultra high quality audio and trying to represent that on handheld and you add a new dimension to the problem.
Creatively, we wanted to stay as close to the source material as possible while adding something new to go with Blackgate’s unique side-scrolling gameplay. Martin Stig Andersen’s work on the sound for LIMBO inspired us to try a scene-by-scene mix approach to Blackgate. We used Wwise mix states that would swap out as Batman moves through different environments and camera angles. For example, in the Gotham City intro level, the mix would focus on Batman’s movement above all else, then shift to focus on the sound of pounding rain. Then later the mix might focus on the droning hum of industrial machines.
We loved taking on these and other challenges working on Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate and look forward to working with the great Armature Studios again soon.