PUBG developers announce sound improvements for footsteps, weapons

Olivia Richman Published 13/08/2019

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will be receiving major sound updates in the near future.

The PUBG Sound Team recently published a press release that outlines their sound improvement timeline. A member of the team, Kyungwon Park, explained that sound is “one of the most important aspects” of the battle royale, since it offers key information about players’ enemies and the environment.

“It has been around two years since PUBG was introduced, and there have been many changes and improvements in players’ gameplay styles and patterns. Our sound team thought it was a good time to evolve our sound play along with these trends,” Park said.

The press release then outlines the six main areas that will be improved upon. The first is improving player quality of life regarding sound, followed by adjusting sound balance related to gameplay and improving various character animation sounds. Gun firing sounds will be their next focus, then the improvement of vehicular sounds. Indoor reverb is the last to be worked on, according to the timeline.

It appears that all of the improvements will take place this year, beginning in August and ending in December.

PUBG sound update set for August

Two updates will be available this month. The first is the instant volume reducer feature.

“Some of the game’s sounds are quite a bit louder than others, such as the starting plane and red zone explosions, which can make it difficult to communicate with teammates over voice chat,” Park said.

The developer went on to explain that many players had to use the CTRL+M to mute certain in-game sounds. This cuts out sound completely. The new update will allow players to mute certain louder sounds while not having to lose out on all other auditory information.

According to Park, players will be able to press F7 in a match and the game’s volume will be “uniformly reduced” by a certain percentage. Pressing the button again will bring the volume back to the normal level.

The second August update will be a volume adjustment guide feature.

“Many PUBG players set their overall volume to very loud in order to catch even the slightest sounds, such as footsteps, made by another player, as these sounds are very important in PUBG gameplay,” Park explained. “However, this also means that loud sounds like gunfire are played even louder and can hurt a player’s ears.”

To help players prepare for different sound volumes, devleopers will be adding a volume adjustment guide feature that lets the player listen to the loudest sounds in the game simply by pushing a button. They can then adjust the overall volume to suit their individual preference.

These two updates will be available with update 4.2.

According to the press release, September will see updates to character motion sounds like landing and ledge-grabbing, as well as footsteps and red zone sounds. The footstep sound rebalance will ensure that footsteps will sound realistic to players, offering subtle differences in sounds made if players are crouching. Footsteps will also have a sharp fall-off in volume once the volume reaches a certain level.

“Our purpose is to prevent players from having to deal with vastly different sound levels due to raising their volume too much to focus on the sounds of footsteps. However, we will maintain the audible range of movement sounds as much as possible to keep them close to what players are familiar with,” Park continued.

They will also be lowering the red zone’s overall volume after many players expressed that the sounds there were too loud.

Other upcoming sound improvements will further create a realistic environment for PUBG players. Many sounds will change based on a player’s perspective, while various locations will have different reverb sounds depending on the building’s material.

“The ultimate goal of the plan is to deliver a better sounding environment that is in line with how players enjoy the game today. As always, we’ll continue to constantly research new ways to improve the sound experience in the game and are always listening for your valuable feedback on this and other systems,” the developers concluded.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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