What(ever) happened to ambient sounds in games?

So I was talking with cainetao a couple of hours ago and this topic popped up...Modern games seem to be devoid of any ambient sounds and you no longer feel as if you were in an organic breathing world.

You know what I'm talking about? Go back to Tomb Raider 2 from 1997 and see what I mean. Sounds of birds chirping, rushing streams of water, insects, etc. You almost get none of that in games anymore. I'm not sure if this is a result of fixation on accentuating every single moment with music or just being unimaginative or lazy...One time I reminded myself of that was in Rise of the Tomb Raider in Geothermal Valley where you actually could hear those sounds somewhat prominently, but it was too little of that in my opinion. That's when I realized this is exactly what is missing in modern games but existed in the past and made games more subconsciously memorable. Not to mention they contributed to immersion.

Have you noticed that?

Are there any modern games that do ambient sounds right? I think The Witcher 3 didn't do as much as it could. I think it was ok in this respect but old Gothic games were better.

This is a very good question that most people will ignore on SW. Yes, I've noticed this too. Older games like Tomb Raider, Thief, System Shock etc definitely had better and more loud ambient sounds that added a lot to the immersion of the game. Newer games lack it for some reason. I think Witcher 2 had pretty kick ass ambient sounds.

Good sound design is an incredibly important part of a game being immersive. Probably even more so than strong visuals. I'm perfectly fine with mediocre visuals and stellar sound design.

Nothing feels more dead than playing a game with headphones and still being able to hear cars honking outside because the game doesn't have any ambien sounds to make the world sound alive.

Play SOMA.

Far Cry 4 comes to find.

GTA V is another.

The ambient sounds in the witcher 3 were pretty good

Plenty of new games still have great ambient sounds.

MGSV, as usual for the series, did a great job with its sound design. Not only does everything have its own sound, but it all changes accurately depending on the type area that you're in, and it's represented very well in 3d space. If you have good surround or decent headphones, you can pinpoint the direction and distance of many things in the environment.

The low hum of different machinery and electronics, the sounds of the wind (dependent on the weather, environment and elevation), the crackle of small fires burning, the buzz of outdoor lights, especially when they first power on, all the sounds of wildlife, some just ambient while others are actually coming from animals in the area, etc..

I suppose that stuff is pretty much standard for stealth games though. Thief, Splinter Cell and MGS have always excelled at this. Not only does it add to the immersion, but great sound design is more important to the gameplay in these games than most people realize.

The Witcher 3 actually did these pretty well- so did Bloodborne, though in Bloodborne, even the ambient sounds are a part of the game's central gameplay conceit.

I've usually found Nintendo games to be top notch in this area, but lately, we haven't actually had a great many high profile Nintendo games, so yeah, I agree, ambient sounds are a bit... lacking in most modern games. It's a crying shame, they can add so much to a game's atmosphere and immersion.

Ambient sound didn't disappear. They're still there. The games I've been playing a lot of all have good ambient sound.

FC2,3,4/TW3/GTA V all have good ambient sound. It's the first thing I listen for because I always turn the game music off. Game music is irritating when I'm trying to get immersed in the game.

GTA V has tons of ambient sounds, not sure what you're talking about. It's actually a very good example of a game that has great sound design.

Call of duty black ops 3 actually has some nice sounds. It's not incredible to the point that the park that makes footsteps louder would be even worth trying. Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3 sounds are just repetitive sadly.

The art of game sounds could be better hopefully game developers focus more time on this in the future.

Yeah I thought the Witcher 3 did it pretty well.

And I totally agree about ambient sound btw... so important in helping build atmosphere. Half-Life 2 was incredible at it.

How so exactly? To me it seems typical of just about every outdoor/indoor action game. Sounds of wind, helicopters, train..etc. I didn't hear any sounds that added to the atmosphere, rather they just complimented the environment as one would expect. There were a few "Space" ambient tones here and there but I never considered this game as atmospheric in the likes of Metro, Stalker, FEAR or even Prey.

Dying Light has ambient sounds

lol this is exactly what i was talking about couple of days ago. they're blasting the dumb music and ambient sound is completely absent. Normally i play with muted music (its more distracting than anything else) so ambient sound is something im always looking into. Sadly its not present in 90% of the games. TW3 for example had great ambient sounds and from what i remember DA:I as well.

THIS, GTA V has fantastic ambient sound both on the PS3 and PS4.

Yeah, it's one of the things that have been absent in video games for too long now.. that and deep gameplay mechanics. Our prefered type of video games are close to extinction.

Probably because back then, ambient sounds weren't in the background like they should have been.

It's still there in spades, especially in open world AAA games, EA games in general seem to have good sound direction as well. You dont really notice them because modern games have more layers of processed propagation and the sound is actually localized around you (If you're using a stereo output, then there's the problem). This can cause music to take away the presence of ambient sounds since music will almost always be centralized and there's no way around that other than to turn down/off the music.

Im gonna take a shot based on sound engineering principles here, but sound in older games were alot more direct; the layering of sound/ambience had to be done more carefully or you'd face issues with clipping. The easiest solution is to have no music and let the ambience carry the game from being sonically empty and to save the music for later. I think this is where this perception stems from.

@Salt_The_Fries: It stopped happening after vista came out and killed sound blaster hardware acceleration from working. Now no one has EAX or anything like that. Devs feel throughing souround sound is enough... yet it's not. I remember thief, tr2, solder of fortune 2, clive barkers undying , vampire the masquerade bloodlines, battlefield vietnam etc... all had extra effects, eax, and reall 3d hardware positioning. Hell I remember my sound blaster live card from 2000 that actually boosted my voodoo and p3 in fps for games and opened up a whole new world back then...

Bottom line MS vista killed sound blaster which killed dedicated sound cards. No more sound blaster = no more deals with devs to make good ambient 3d audio == :(

Btw could anyone recommend a game with deep, well thought-out game mechanics and good ambient sounds? I'm struggling to find anything good.

On a similar subject... did anyone notice that Ocarina of Time and The Witcher 2 use the same "It's night time and a crow makes a caw sound" sample? Im convinced it's the same sample.

The funny thing is I just bought a new soundblaster card a few weeks ago, and it actually improved my fps in games, especially ones that play a lot of sound samples at the same time like diablo 3.

It also made everything in general sound better and cleaner.

That's what made it cool to me... wondering around City 17, hearing helicopters fly overhead & the wind every now and then howl, and the creaking noises when near the toxic waste... and the alarms going off in the distance etc. Soooo good.

I know some of them are just environmental noise, but a lot of them are ambient too I think.

Play Demon's Souls, probably the best example of any game in recent memory. Bloodborne is good for this gen but the sounds in Demon's Souls were just on a different level IMO.

huh I never noticed. I wonder why? Cutting Development costs for Instrumental Music? I think From Software's Soul Series and Bloodborne do a good job, but I don't actually think I've played a game recently where I could just sit around and here silence and just things happening without music intruding.

Maybe Splatoon's Title Screen and Hub?