What's been your favorite aspect of each landing zone to date so far?

I have one. And it's pretty surprising coming from an artist. You probably think it's going to be art-related, but I think it's actually, for me, the sound design. I think that sound makes up a big chunk of the experience, right? And we look at the art a lot, so we get used to the art. And it's super refreshing when the sound designer submits their stuff. You go in the editor and it's like a whole new place when the sound kicks in. It's pretty awesome always to hear.

It's often one of the last things to come into the landing zone as well. When we've done all the art, well, most of the art anyway, we don't hear much of the sound, they've got to compose the music, and it often comes in quite near the end of production of the landing zone. So it is really nice to boot the game up and go, ah, there's either music or actual sound around, and it sounds like it's part of the location. It's really nice. I think Area 18 is quite successful in that.

Area 18 is my favorite for that. And I think for that exact reason too, the mood and vibe that you get in Area 18. There's a lot of other games out there that do it quite well, but Area 18, I don't know, for me it has that feeling of, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I can second that actually. It's the whole mood and all the neon signs and the city vibe you have around. I think Area 18 also has a lot of potential for further expansions, with all the rooftops we have and all the things we can potentially do more with the city. And I think it's probably the location I would like to do more stuff on.

I agree, the ambience of Area 18 is by far one of my favorite aspects. It's just this sensory overload when you walk around, all the music. You walk around in the city, and after a while you get used to it, all the ads playing in your face and everything, and then you do your stuff and then you leave the city and go like...

Quite successful, I would say. The word diegetic is when the soundscape is coming from the environment. For me, I think New Babbage is my favorite landing zone, partly because it feels like the most realistic landing zone. It feels very grounded as a city. It feels like a realistic city. I know it's all sci-fi and everything, but the way it's structured, the transit route, talking about the navigation again, going around the domes, as well as flying around the actual city, it feels the most grounded in reality, which I've really enjoyed. And I just love snow as well. So I like seeing all the snowy dusting over the whole city, I think it's really nice.

I'm going to cheap out and agree with Boy. I used to have a career in audio before I did this. I think audio is one of the things that's the most important to me in almost any piece of anything. It drives the emotion, it drives the feeling. There's a particular moment that I find quite memorable during my time here, and that was my second CitizenCon that I was actually on location, which is when we showed off New Babbage. And there was something so incredibly special about the Carrack coming in, and the music just hit all of the right notes, and you'd see the landscape of New Babbage and you hear the wind and you hear the thrusters of the Carrack firing and the music is just swelling up. And that in an auditorium probably amplified the feel of it, sure. But to me, the music and the audio is such an integral part of the experience. And it's sad that we see it so late. It's totally understandable why it's so late, but we often just put on our own music that inspires the feel of the location. And sometimes we send that to the audio team to send to Pedro for some inspiration. So many playlists. But yeah, that's it for me.

The amount of times I've listened to the Blade Runner soundtrack while working on this game, it's insane, many, many, many times.