Storm in an earcup

PS5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech is the sound of the future

While PS5’s DualSense controller is designed to make games feel more immersive than ever, the console’s Tempest 3D AudioTech will ensure games sound like nothing you’ve experienced before.

Developed in tandem with the console hardware, Tempest 3D AudioTech has been created by Mark Cerny, PS5’s system architect, to deliver vivid, object-based 3D sound in games. We’re promised the tech is so powerful we’ll be able to hear individual rain drops hitting different parts of a game’s environment. Sounds impressive? In simple terms the idea is to place us – the player – in the centre of a world, and whisk sound around us, enabling us to hear characters approaching from behind us or the noise of objects whizzing above our heads or a stream of water gushing past.

AUDIO ALL-IN

The team behind 2021’s Horizon Forbidden West are using Tempest to ensure the mechanical creatures of Aloy’s world sound as terrifying as they look, and we’ll know where they are. Mathijs de Jonge, game director at Guerrilla Games says: “Now with the PS5 console’s Tempest 3D AudioTech sound engine we’ll be able to play sounds in

“THE TECH IS SO POWERFUL WE’LL BE ABLE TO HEAR INDIVIDUAL RAINDROPS.”

“PLAYERS CAN PINPOINT THE LOCATIONS OF NEARBY ENEMIES.”

such a way that players will be able to locate the machines around them with greater ease, which is great for situations in which you find yourself surrounded or just want to sneak [up] on machines.”

Though we’ve had special audio in games for some time, with the volume of a conversation decreasing in intensity the further we move away from a character, this is a trick and not true 3D audio existing in a space. What Tempest does, through lots of audio algorithms, is to create a believable soundscape the brain hears as naturalistic; your brain is tricked into locating each sound it hears within a 3D space.

This object-based spatial sound technology used in Tempest is a development of the system that was devised for PS VR, but whereas Sony’s virtual reality headset simulates 50 sound sources Tempest ramps this up into the hundreds.

The team at Nixxes, the company porting Marvel’s

Avengers to PS5, are enjoying using 3D audio to bring the Hulk to life and give us more understanding of our place in the world. “Our game worlds have been 3D for generations now, but for audio we typically have been limited to 2D surround sound. When Iron Man is destroying a turret positioned above you, or Hulk roars as he takes on the enemies below you, you want to hear the sound coming from those directions,” says Jurjen Katsman, studio head at Nixxes. “We can just take the actual positions of the audio and ensure we get them to the PS5 3D Audiotech engine and significantly improve your sense of being in the world. And all that is just with your headphones, without needing complex surround stereo systems.”

The tools on offer to developers are so flexible and powerful, games and scenes can be designed around sound in the same way as studios would create a game around visual design. Using Tempest developers can sonically ‘paint’ a scene to enhance it – but they can also use it to devise new gameplay ideas.

Going back to that rainfall example, PS4 games currently devise rain as one solid sound and use various techniques to give the impression of depth. On PS5, using Tempest, each raindrop can be a unique sound source. We’ll be able to hear where the rain drops around us.

Horror and shooter developers are going to freak us out with this technology, so it’s no wonder Returnal developer Housemarque is keen on making the most of Tempest. Harry Krueger, game director on

Returnal, explains: “3D Audio is exciting because it can create a more convincing and accurate soundscape for players, and a stronger sense of place […] In a fast-paced action game with lots of verticality like Returnal, it can also help with the player’s situational awareness, and make it more intuitive for players to pinpoint the locations of nearby enemies or incoming projectiles in the heat of combat.”

JACK IN

The best way to experience 3D audio on PS5 day one will be with the sleek new Pulse 3D wireless headset, but the good news is you won’t need to pay out for one straight away. If you plug your current headphones into the USB slot on your PS5, or the 3.5mm headset jack on the DualSense controller, you’ll be able to experience the console’s 3D audio on supported games. Sony regards headphones as the ‘gold standard’ in audio, so sadly you won’t experience the wonders of 3D audio from your TV’s speakers. However, we expect this to change in the future as Tempest will support virtual surround sound at some point. If you’ve bought yourself a PS5 then you really need to go the extra mile and invest in the 3D Pulse or another decent pair of headphones – luckily for you we’ve rounded up the best there is on p112; go on, treat yourself.