The little things make a big difference sometimes. You don’t necessarily need your character to mutter “ow” in reaction to falling a few hundred feet and then landing in a set of jagged branches, but that expression of pain does do journeyman service to making a game world feel more alive. Which is why the Worlds Adrift team went to the trouble of recording a new batch of audio assets headed to the game to give player characters some sounds when they’re injured, along with the various emotes getting some voices.
One of the big points for the developers was downplaying severity; the team didn’t want characters screaming in agony as bad things happened, but just expressing some degree of exertion and pain. The voice emotes also provided their own struggles, including the male voice actor being unable to burp on command (forcing a developer to step in and provide the vital belch). Check out the full rundown on voices as well as some of the raw audio on the official site.
