Heard About: Operation Flashpoint

In Operation Flashpoint, if your ears aren’t working, you’re a dead man." So says audio director Stephen Root, a point emphasised in a TV commercial for the new title which, unusually, starts with just game audio against black frames. In a stunning simulation of the visceral unease of battlefield combat, where a careless head raised above a parapet is almost guaranteed to be blown off, hyper-aware listening is vital as you inch forward, often pinned down by an ever-present threat.

Realism is the watchword, so there’s no ‘Hollywood-isation’ and no effort spared on the weapons sound recordings. They took place on a shooting range in Nashville, featuring the use of complex capture set-ups – close, 200m and 500m mic’ing – to achieve the striking in-game juxtaposition of distant sound effects’ perspective against terrifying bullet-bys and impacts that bypass the brain to provoke a primal fear response.