Phil Peers-Smallwood · Lead Sound Designer, Foundry 42 UK

The designer that's looking after the weapons primarily at the moment is Barney Aurum, great chap. And what he's doing is trying to put a bit more fidelity into the different perspectives. So that's third-person perspective, primarily NPCs. Obviously, as a player character, you have access to all the weapons, and you play that from a first-person perspective, and then a not-too-far third-person perspective. But what we were doing is adding more depth and character to an NPC at different distances firing those different types of weapon at you. So if they're, say, 150 meters away, it will sound very different than if they're 100, 75, 50, 25, or right on top of you. And we do that by introducing and taking away different layers based on distance. So say if an NPC is firing a weapon at you at very close range, you'd possibly hear more of the mechanical workings of the gun. And then if you're really at a far distance, then you would just hear the boom of the shot.