“I designed the Chimera to be inorganic, yet human enough to be scary,” Masanobu ‘Tomi’ Tomita, senior sound designer at Keyword Studio Sound Lab, told me. “I want people to be in awe of this beast and feel its power when they play the game.”
Tomita and Sound Lab sound designer Gabriel Acosta created the soundscapes for multiple elements of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion pack, for CD Projekt Red’s in-house sound team, which consists of lead sound designer Krzystof Popiel and audio producer ) Work in progress with support from Joanna Frankowska. “Every project I work on has its own unique style and requirements, and Cyberpunk 2077 is no exception,” Tomita said. “For Phantom Liberty, the sound needed to be futuristic but believable.”
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“My goal is to provide intricate and innovative details in the design that allow players to remain grounded in reality while imagining what a future reality might sound like,” added the 17-year veteran of Has a lot of sound design credits in his own games. His name spans games and movies, including several entries in “Devil May Cry 5,” “Destiny 2” and “Final Fantasy 16.”
“It was great to have the opportunity to work on Phantom Free, as it required settling on a very specific aesthetic that blended realism and futuristic sci-fi into a believable yet interesting sonic palette,” Acosta explains Dao, who has previously worked on “Valorant”, has also participated in the production of “Valorant”. “It was definitely a challenge and we spent a lot of time throwing things against the wall and seeing what stuck.”
While neither designer had the chance to work on the base version of Cyberpunk, Acosta did remember “having a lot of fun with the original version,” adding: “I really liked all the vehicle options , just exploring the vast world that CDPR has built.”
Among the audio aspects the pair brought to Phantom Free include the iconic Chimera tank chase sequence and boss fight from the expansion’s third main mission, “Spiders and Flies.” When I first dived into Dogtown back in September, fighting with President Miles against the tank-like madness of military battle droids was one of the first moments of the expansion that really made an impression on me, of course. Not by accident.
“Hopefully it’s an intense, exciting experience, like [you’ll] Acosta said when I asked him what he hoped “big, bombastic action sequences” would do to players. To capture the perfect fusion of humans and robots in the robot, Tomita drew inspiration from “machines like the Terminator T-1000, designed to carry out ruthless attacks.”
From a practical perspective, Tomita enjoys the challenge Chimera presents, explaining: “[It] There are many moving parts and complex elements that require extreme attention to detail. I spent a lot of time tweaking the sound through trial and error to get just the right balance of elements. ” For Acosta, the lasting memory of making this sequence was “choreographing all the destruction,” the designer recalls: “I had to layer all kinds of metal, glass, and concrete explosions and then go to town. Quite fun! “
Another aspect of the expansion that the duo worked on was the soundscapes that come with some of the new weapons in the game. Tomita developed the unique NDI Osprey sniper rifle found in FIA agent Alex Xenakis’ safehouse, while Acosta developed the equally rare Erebus SMG.
The former involves creating a “powerful and special alloy feel,” Tomita explains: “My approach is to first work on the core sound, which is the powerful part of the gun. Then I focus on the specific flavor [the] arms. ” In addition to creating sound elements to cover everything from “shooting motion mechanics” to indicating when a gun is starting to run low on ammo, and even the click you hear when you pull the trigger after completely depleting ammo, he also designed it Different sounds in different environments.
For example, if you fire a gun indoors and then perform the same action after entering a busy street, the gun won’t sound exactly the same – open outdoor areas and tunnels have their own special variations, too. Acosta, meanwhile, said that when putting together Erebus’ metallic harmonies, he “had to balance a powerful, satisfying feel when shooting or interacting with it, while also letting the futuristic design stand out. “
Ultimately, in my opinion, it’s this idea of brutal, human realism in a neon-soaked mechanical future that really makes Phantom Free‘s most memorable moments feel like what they do, and they certainly don’t Would be that great without the obvious hard work that went into designing the audio that accompanies them.
