Greetings pilots!
Let's cover a bit more the updated sounds in Heliborne: Enhanced Edition. We've put a lot into more up-to-date and realistic graphics. And we want in-game sounds to conform.
When we talk about immersion, it is important what you see in front of you, but it is even more important is what you hear. The final goal is to make sounds support all the rest elements of the game in the right way and give you the ambiance that correlates to your expectations. That's how we described the sound task for ourselves.
What has been done already
We have made quite a lot of new sound effects from scratch. Those are sounds of helicopters (engines and rotors), a variety of weapons, effects of explosions. Basically, what we consider as the primary and most important sound effects in Heliborne. You will be able to hear them in the game quite soon.
The next thing is the soundtrack. Although we like the original Heliborne soundtrack, we thought we could make it even better if we added distinctive and memorable compositions. And since we've added more night maps, they also needed a proper soundtrack.
Here are two examples:
Afghanistan
Night Kosovo
Let us know what you think and whether you would like to hear the full compositions!
Besides that, we have refreshed the game's menu with UI sounds, so all your actions before a flight would also have audio feedback!
What is planned for later
Some of the less critical sounds remain unchanged—for example, sounds of ground vehicles that you can only hear when you fly close to them. However, we do plan to update them too as soon as we have an opportunity.
What is not planned
One of the questions bothering our voice actors was whether we are going to change the original community-made voice over. The answer is "No": we appreciate the community's input into the Heliborne development a lot and don't want the game to lose its charm.