For audio teams world-wide the complexity of game design, quest for quality, pace of iteration, and sometimes the massive scale means you need to build systems that are responsive and flexible. At Ubisoft Quebec, the audio team realized that their game designs were now in demand of a new approach to audio; one that is more systemic. They could not rely on a traditional manual, minute-by-minute approach to audio design, integration and mixing. This presentation will cover why this is important, how the Ubisoft audio team embraced systemic audio on 'Assassins Creed Odyssey', and how they created and used tools and pipelines to support their internal development with a central focus on the player experience. The session will also cover how the team approached the complexity of constructing, recording and integrating voice, how you can improve the approach to interactive music to support character, emotion and player choice, as well as how the team aimed to maintain consistency of player experience with Foley, sfx, and ambiences. Finally, this lecture will discuss how Ubisoft brought all these elements together through systems that were a friend, not enemy, to creativity.

Takeaway

The attendees will walk away with an understanding of the potential challenges and benefits of adopting a systemic approach; how systemic audio is not a creative straight jacket but rather a series of pipelines that support iteration and improvement.

Intended Audience

This talk will be useful for audio and production professionals and students. It will talk about iteration and creativity, and how to achieve this through a systemic approach to integration and pipelines. These ideas can be applied to many game departments.