Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Dev Promises "Huge Improvement" To Weapon Audio

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games already discussed the strides it's making in terms of visuals for this fall's military shooter. Now, the developer is back to point out how the game's sound design is shaping up to blow gamers away.

In the video above, released today, Sledgehammer Games audio director Don Veca says he expects players will immediately notice how much better guns sound in Advanced Warfare. "Right off the bat, one of the things I think gamers are going to notice is the huge improvement to the weapons," Veca said.

Veca said his team didn't just record a weapon sound and import that into Advanced Warfare. Instead, the developer tried to recreate the feeling of what it felt like to fire a weapon as a means to make the player feel like they are really there. The game's guns have been designed so that the "sound goes through your body," Veca said.

Not only will guns sound impressive in Advanced Warfare, Veca says, but because Sledgehammer has built "intelligence" into its audio systems, you will "virtually never hear the same impact or explosion twice."

Advanced Warfare is of course set in the future; 2054 to be exact. However, to make the game's sounds come across as believable, Veca said it was important to ground them in reality.

"It's a futuristic setting, but we want it to be believable," Veca said. "We would always start with something grounded and add new sounds that we created ourselves, mix it in, layer things; so that you come up with something truly unique."

It all comes together, Veca says, to create a sound that rivals that of Hollywood movies. "When you're done, you see all these different audio systems all working together, and it sounds like a movie. But it's not a movie. It's happening right there," he said.

Advanced Warfare launches November 4 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC. Sledgehammer recently said that because the game was developed over a period of three years, the studio was able to take "full advantage" of the power of the Xbox One and PS4.