Week 5 – AIM110.1 Patchwork Task (Genre)

Genre-Action/Adventure: Shadow Of the Tomb Raider

For this task i have chosen to discuss the 2018 Video game release Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider Belongs to the Action/Adventure genre of games. Action/adventure  games typically involve experiencing a detailed storyline together with puzzle solving and decision making elements that are used to unlock key story points and progress the game and story further. At the same time this genre will usually require you to kill your way through masses of enemies and or creatures whether they be an evil zombie army or just a hungry bear looking for his next meal. since the original release in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has been no exception to the norm and has done a lot to define the genre both in the sense of ground breaking game mechanics and with its constantly changing and improving graphics.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider  is the 12th instalment of the well known series and follows the main protagonist Lara Croft as she traverses the vast continent of South America through several different maps and environments on an epic journey to save the world from a terrible mayan apocalypse

 

In The video ” The Sound of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider” (Coleman,M. 2018) Rob Bridgett, who is the audio director for the Game Shadow of the tomb Raider, stated that when starting to create the audio profiles for the game ”we really want authenticity in the South American cultures that we are going to represent”. Rob Bridgett also addressed the fact that he and senior game designer Daniel Chayer Bisson wanted to move away from the more typical melodic soundtracks of the previous games and develop a more ambient and emotion driven audio profile that would blur the lines between game music and sound effects. This prompted them to seek out composer Brian D’oliveira, expert researcher and performer or traditional South American music and instruments. Together with Rob Bridgett, D’oliveira created a unique and spooky music profile for the game. D’oliveira sourced traditional South American instruments and artefacts (seen in the Picture below), including several different styles of aztec death whistles and even a collection of carefully selected volcanic rocks, that he then used to create the stunningly rich and captivating musical track that both inspired fear, intrigue and suspense during gameplay.

A collection of traditional South American instruments sourced and used to create the unique soundtrack by Composer Brian D’oliveira

 

    in the video  sound Designer Anne Sophie Monngeau describes(Coleman,M. 2018) that they wanted to create a personal musical profile for the main protagonist Lara croft. This was meant to create more of an understanding of the character and her mindset therefore helping the player of the game to further immerse themselves into the gameplay. the instruments used to create this profile for Lara were a 1780 cello and a puma styled aztec death whistle both sourced and performed by composer Brian D’oliveira. Animal gut strings were used on the cello to give a darker more foreboding sound and creating a “sonic DNA” as described by D’oliveira(Coleman,M. 2018)

     when designing the sound environments, a lot of detail and care was taken to create a specific emotional profile for each location or scene in the game. Audio director Rob Bridgett states (Coleman,M. 2018) that one of the main ideas for the theme of the audio for the game was “fear”, which he implemented with the use of musical or audio effect cues at certain visual points in the game progression to invoke the continuing feeling of fear or suspense.

     One of the things that sets Shadow of the Tomb Raider apart from the previous games, is the use of the Dolby Atmos Surround Sound Software to create a 3D Sound environment, allowing the audio team to hand place certain sounds at a wider variety of directions and heights to create a stunning audio profile for locations such as dense jungle, which would naturally have a large variety of animals and insects above and below as well as the sounds of dripping water and so forth. simpler and more traditional techniques were applied also to great effect, such as reverb and echo in large canyons or near cliff faces to create the sense of openness and danger of falling as well as simply using mono sound and centre weighting to create a sense of closeness and claustrophobia in caves and tight spaces.

Another example of a game within the same genre Would be Uncharted 4. This game is similar to Shadow of the Tomb Raider because of the gameplay and storyline content E.g. Climbing, jumping, puzzle solving, and survival elements) but also in the sense that the wide range of locations and exotic nature of these locations would require similar audio profiles E.g. Diverse animal/insect life, wide open spaces like cliffs and ravines, close and tight spaces like caves and tombs.