One of the coolest God of War Ragnarok‘s sound effects actually came from a baby… a baby in a womb, to be precise. That’s according to Santa Monica Studio‘s senior sound designer Alex Previty, who sought the help of his unborn daughter for the task!
How God of War Ragnarok Spark of the World sound effects came to being
God of War content creator Kaptain Kuba took to Twitter to post a snippet of the Spark of the World — a location in Ragnarok where the realms of Muspelheim and Niflheim meet. Kuba pointed out how “unsettling” the sound effects were, to which Previty responded by saying that he used his daughter’s heartbeat as part of the world’s sound while she was still in the womb. The results are pretty awesome.
“I recorded it via the 3.5mm output of a baby doppler,” Previty explained. “The longer tonal elements are from a children’s choir warming up in a gymnasium!” Have a listen below:
God of War Ragnarok’s sound design earned widespread praise, and fans are enthralled by Previty’s explanation for how he designed the sound above. The developer added that he slowed the fetal heartbeat down “quite a bit to not only slow the pace down, but also to make it sound larger!”