Bethesda’s “Skyrim” audio: from the minds of Mark Lampert and Jeremy Soule

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Skyrim, the 5th expansion to The Elder Scrolls series, is an amazing title that was highly anticipated by The Elder Scroll’s community. Mark Lampert, the Audio Director and Sound Designer for the game, and Jeremy Soule, Skyrim’s Music Composer, both had an incredibly huge task when it came to the audio for Skyrim. Skyrim depicts a cold, rocky, and icy characteristic, which was constantly on Lampert’s mind during the recording and editing of the sounds for Skyrim. With the direction to move away from the melodic and flowing roots of The Elder Scrolls series, Jeremy Soule also had faced many challenges in perfecting the feel of his compositions.

Sound Effects: The Sound Design of Skyrim

“For the most part, over the course of the whole project, it’s about 60-70% Sound design.” - Mike Lampert (Hanson, 2011, pg. 1)

The sound design for Skyrim is significantly more rough, “chewed-up,” and raw as opposed to Skyrim’s predecessor, Oblivion. Lambert mentioned how he would go on hikes around his parent’s house in the Appalachian Mountains and capture the beautiful nature. In a video on www.gameinformer.com, Lambert said, “Field recording is fun, too. You’re just sitting in the woods, getting eaten by bugs but trying to be very still with the mics.” (Hanson, 2011, pg. 1) Field recording is an essential part of creating the audio for a game because it makes you collect as many sounds as you can so you can manipulate and layer multiple sounds to create what your mind is envisioning.

Creating a dragon’s roar was one of the biggest obstacles for Lampert to overcome. Through the manipulation of different animal noises, as well as screams produced by himself, Lampert was able to create a plethora of dragon sounds that he was happy with.

Music: The Music Behind Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls series is known for its iconic music that is loved by all who have played the series. With Jeremy Soule composing the music for this game, Skyrim was ready to become another iconic addition to The Elder Scrolls collection. Todd Howard, the games creator, spoke with Jeremy about the direction of the music for Skyrim. He said, “what we have in mind is this heavy-handed, brutal sound that is the land of the Nords… so we don’t want it to be as melodic, or flowing, as it was before.” (Hanson, 2011, pg. 1) The music then took the focus of having more percussive roots, with Lampert’s only requests to Soule to make the music more drum heavy.

Another huge change for the music of Skyrim was the option of having an all Male choir chant the melody of The Elder Scrolls Theme. This gave a more brutal expression to overall feel of the music for the game.

Conclusion

In summary, Skyrim’s feel is unlike any of the other Elder Scroll’s titles. Skyrim’s brutal, raw, and natural sounds perfectly depict the cold, icy setting that the game takes place in. I implore anyone who loves games to play this game. Skyrim’s level of player immersion is immaculate and I know any fellow Skyrim players would agree with me.

Resources:

Hanson, B. (2011, January 14). The Sounds Of Skyrim. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/14/the-sounds-of-skyrim.aspx

[BethesdaSoftworksUK]. (2011, November 3). The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - The Sound of Skyrim. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ7lmWc14uo