Prologue Write up

Throughout Total War: Warhammer III it was my responsibility to manage audio support for the “Prologue”.

Unlike most total war experiences which are a sandbox, this mode was going to be a more traditional linear level design.

The goal of the project was to tell a story and teach people how to play total war. I set about doing everything possible to ensure audio supported the vision of telling the best narrative total war story to date.

The premise was of Yuri, a Kislev general marching into the northern chaos wastes to save his bear God, Ursun.

He starts his journey in these baltic wastes, from the onset of loading into the game the player is greeted with a cold gust of wind to set the scene for what is yet to come. From this scripted trigger, the map now opens up. Not only were all ambient assets designed to be of a cold region but everything was made to have a dark/ horror edge to it. In one way this was achieved by placing subtle screams in the tail of most of the one-shot wind gusts.

From here the player journeys up and has their first encounter with chaos. Lighting strikes and portal sounds were designed to be as aggressive as possible to sell the aesthetic of chaos.

The next area of the map is dedicated to Tzeentch, the trickster God of chaos. Everything became magical in this region, with cold gusts being replaced with sinister magic sparkles. The Luminescent maze was a location where an important battle would take place. On the campaign map, the audio from this region was designed to be as abstract as possible. A drone plays throughout, with this drone being created from time stretching a wooden chair being dragged across the floor layered up with numerous synth patches.

To balance out the trickster God the war God Khorne has his region next. This was meant to sound like hell on earth with lava everywhere and the screams of tortured souls.

The prologue map ends in a massive tower called the howling citadel, it boomed across the campaign map but with careful attenuations so that it would only become audible once the player had the tower in their line of sight.

To have the 3 changing environment types (Cold, Tzeentch, and Khorne) we used a state group that change the mix based on the location on the map. These states were triggered by sound marker spheres placed in the terrain file, with a sphere for each state type. So as the player moved from one sphere to another the ambiance mix and assets changed accordingly.

The Journey of Yuri was essentially a progression to reaching hell and audio did everything it could to serve that journey by constantly keeping the soundscape in line with the narrative.

Collection of Prologue regions showcasing the environments