Wildcraft: Ocean World

The Ocean World is a game mode that was added to the WildCraft, a wildlife simulator game, in the massive update of 2021. This game world is quite different from the regular one, and the players get a chance to try themselves in the role of a Dolphin or Shark.

You can check out the underwater world by downloading the game here.

Sound concept

It has been almost five years since we started working with the WildCraft team. As all the music was composed at the very beginning of our collaboration, throughout this time, we’ve been mainly creating sound effects to keep up with the ever-growing game world. As a result, we’ve established a unique ‘WildCraft sound’ that helped us make every new batch of sound assets sound consistent with the rest of the game.

However, the Ocean World is practically a game within a game, so we had to step up our audio game. Thus, we’ve created a totally new audio concept for this new world.

First of all, we’ve studied the preferences and habits of the target audience, as well as main competitors and best practice underwater games. It helped us find a few much-needed insights and define which niche clichés to avoid.

Based on all of this information, we’ve set the tasks and goals for both soundtrack and sound design.

While we were creating the soundtrack for WildCraft: Ocean World, we kept in mind that it had to respect the music legacy of the original wild world; it had to differ from the niche clichés, and it had to give players a relaxing experience in the meantime keeping them stimulated and amused. That’s why we chose smooth electronic underwater ambient with slightly emotional and lively melodies.

As for sound design, we concentrated on exaggerated realism but kept everything soothing, lively, and not harsh. For example, bubbles accompany almost all sounds of emotion/communication. The number and size of the bubbles depend on the size of the fish or animal.

Challenge

Do you know how fish sound? We didn’t know either, ha-ha. So that’s why it became the challenge of this project.

We studied dozens of videos and articles on how different species communicate, what sounds they make, and why. And then, we tried to recreate those sounds by enhancing them, adding emotions, and making them more vibrant.

For fishes/animals that don’t sound in the real world (such as sharks, barracuda, jellyfish, etc.), we’ve sounded them according to their appearance. Such an approach is somewhat similar to the one used in animation films and cartoons.

Result

Overall, it was such a fun collaboration, and boy, oh boy, the audience loves the result!

Listen to the full WildCraft: Ocean World soundtrack by following the link or in the playlist below:

Also, check out the gameplay video: