By the time I started working on the project, I already had over three years of experience working on the tank battle simulator World of Tanks. The main challenge was to make the vehicles sound more modern and distinct from WWII-era machinery. The Cold War–era game featured diesel and gas turbine engines, which required building entirely new sound systems for each type.

One example is the Abrams IPM1 tank. My research led me to the conclusion that no released game had used recorded engine sounds of this tank, due to the difficulty of organizing field recordings. The original vehicle is in active service with the U.S. Department of Defense. Arranging field recordings turned out to be an extremely expensive and legally complex task, as my colleagues working on Call of Duty confirmed.

Cold War–era tanks did not differ much in caliber, so we needed to find a way to differentiate the sounds of various guns. Initially, I planned to shape the sound texture based on each tank’s gameplay role and style. For example, sniper tanks — dangerous at long range — were designed to have a sharp, cracking sound similar to the AWP from CS. The lower the penetration capability, the less threatening the sound should feel. Ultimately, I arrived at the following system:

Since all sounds were created from scratch with only light use of firing range recordings, each shot type required sounds at various distances with multiple variations. At the same time, the player’s own tank shot had to sound more impactful than the same shot from an enemy tank.

Later, as the tank roles and concepts evolved, some of these sounds were retained in the alpha version:

The game features a wide variety of explosions, impacts, destruction effects, and other VFX, which could have required creating a large number of unique sound events for each effect. We decided to build a system where the game triggers a single explosion event and passes parameters from the game engine: explosion size, material types (gasoline, explosives, electricity), types of materials burning after the explosion (wood, fuel, electricity), and burn duration. The system then automatically plays the appropriate sound for each specific explosion.

As with any project in development, it is important not to distort the original concept during the production process. One of my responsibilities as Lead Audio Designer was to establish and maintain the overall sound vision, adjusting it as development progressed. I defined the core gameplay sound direction during the concept phase of the audio subsystems and began implementing it at the first prototype stage. After 2.5 years, 80% of the core gameplay audio systems had been realized, which I then handed off to my colleagues for further scaling.

Working on the sound for World of Tanks: HEAT was an exciting and challenging task that demanded innovative approaches and deep analysis. These systems and solutions not only improved the game’s audio experience but also set new standards for my team and me for future projects in the vehicle shooter genre.