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Marvel's Spider-Man 2's audio director used interesting techniques to get the sound of a bustling New York City in the Spidey sequel.
On October 18, Insomniac's senior audio designer, Jerry Berlongieri, shared a video of how the developers recorded audio for Marvel's Spider-Man 2. As you can imagine, the real-life New York City is likely just a little too busy and unpredictable to record real NPC dialogue, so the team had to get creative when it came to picking up general city chatter.
"The sounds of NYC come to life through many, many sonic layers," Berlongieri explains, "at street level, the sounds of distant voices are recorded using 'walla' groups" - Walla being a sound effect that imitates the murmur of a crowd in the background of radio, film, television, and games. As you can see from the video below, this requires a group of people to walk around in circles in front of a row of microphones and talk about generic topics to themselves.
#Spider-Man2 - The sounds of NYC come to life through many, many sonic layers. At street level the sounds of distant voices are recorded using ‘walla’ groups. This is a look at how we capture some of that. pic.twitter.com/QKcEXpbVIlOctober 18, 2023
As revealed in the replies to the tweet, the actors in the clip were required to improvise their own lines but were occasionally given "some story points so they can riff on game events." According to Berlongieri, "natural, charming moments emerge," from this process making New York City feel like a real, lived-in world. We'll definitely have to listen out to see what everyone's saying once we're walking through a crowd in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Berlongieri also gave an insight into the upcoming game by replying to a fan who asked if the NPCs would react to story events during the campaign. "It depends on a few factors," the developer explains, "but story flow musings are sometimes in the topic bucket a pedestrian might choose to pull from. The pedestrians, if you approach, may switch (from walla when distant in a group) to solo lines or simple conversations."
As the release looms, several other developers on the project have shared small nuggets of information, including the Superhero sequel's director, who warned fans that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 won't feature "the sweet Peter Parker that we love" and that it'll be much "darker" in tone.
Still on the fence about playing this one? Take a look at our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 review to help you decide.
