Worst sound design ever

[Imterriblehelpme]

Apex Legends must have about the worst sound design I've ever had in a game. The gunshots are incredibly loud, even from the other side of the map. Meanwhile, footsteps can barely be heard from people who are literally on top of you, especially from characters like Wraith and Lifeline.

It takes a single fight going on somewhere on the map and you will no longer be able to hear footsteps until that fight is resolved and even then you'll only hear it if you crank your volume up to 11. I have played other games with bad sound, but Apex takes the cake. It makes it nigh unplayable.

[denial1877777]

The balance is fine. Maybe you need a better headset? I rarely have any issue with hearing footsteps. 6 guns shooting hundreds of bullets should make hearing footsteps around you more difficult...

[Imterriblehelpme]

So why is it that this only happens in Apex? And I'm not talking about 6 guns nearby, I'm talking about a single gun about 700 meter away.

[DavidW74]

I think the game has excellent sound.  Stand on the side of your house and listen to someone walking inside...you won't hear much.   Now shoot a gun without hearing protection and tell me how loud it is.  Gunshots can be heard MILES away depending on conditions.   Game nailed it in my opinion.  

If your using desk speakers get yourself a good headset.

Turn Dialogue and music down a lot, 10% -20% and set sound effects to the max...turn up your volume once in a game.   The combat will get loud but you will hear those footsteps much better. 

[DrunkenDuck26]

@denial1877777 Some ppl can hear but some ppl like us dont hear any footsteps. Its not about good or bad headset... 

Playing on Win10, using  Razer Kraken 7.1 Chroma

In other games like Pubg, BF4, BF1, CoD...etc. I can perfectly trace people behind the walls just by listening to their footsteps, so sometimes inexperienced people call me WH. I mean the surround sound of my headset works perfectly. But in APEX I can't hear any footsteps when people get close. I can't hear anything even if the gun barrel sticks to my butt... (I only hear the sound when people slide.) Except for my teammates, their footsteps loud and clear even when they crouched. Also I can hear the revive sound of the enemy at very close range (point blank range) but I can not hear the sounds of healing/armoring items even at point blank range. When I try to healing myself enemies hear it from far away and they rush at me. But i cant do the same, cuz i dont hear any heal animation sounds. This is a huge disadvantage for me. 

@Imterriblehelpme Close range silent footsteps is a known issue. I hope they fix it soon.

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[warslag]

Have a look a this video which I love. It breaks down the sounds in apex and is very intelligently narrated. It could expand your understanding of how the sound works.

[denial1877777]

@DrunkenDuck26

Yes there is a bug where sometimes you may not hear foot steps. No one is arguing that. This is a conversation about the sound overall, not about the glitch.

But i honestly have never had an issue hearing footsteps on my astro 40 TRs however my best friend runs the krakens and never hears enemies before i do. Maybe you both dont run the volume high enough or maybe it is the headset. I don't know. But the fact you say you can't hear the rezing sound but enemies hear yours leads me to believe it is your headset or your volume not being loud enough.

But i clearly hear footsteps. I kbow what surface they are walking on and can usually even hear the difference in the sound of the footsteps each character makes. 

I spent 450$ on a headset and still run it near max volume, i sacrifice my hearing for hearing footsteps lol 

[cooperal1012]

You have control over the balance you know. The only thing I don't like is that my teammates steps can be a bit too loud. But more often than not I will already be keeping tabs on their location.

[TissuePaper77]

I did tested with 2 type of headphone, studio monitor headphone and standard cheap headphone. There is so much difference between it. The game audio its just been balance with 'tight compression' with low level decibels. Basically you can hear shots from far on your headphone because the compression ratio its within the decibels on low levels signal. And i agree on this, the footstep sound having some technical issue on " certain phase". They designed the footstep sound with 360 degrees. When i used my audio technica studio monitor headphone, i can hear so clearly the footstep from enemy that they running around me or lurking, but with a low budget headphone seems kinda having issue on between 0 db to -6 db that hardly to hear. So basically having a higher impedance headphone can hear good range of low level signal but remember folks, higher impedance headphone need higher input signal, i have sound card that can able to deliver high output with low latency. With good headphone with good sound card, you can hear the difference or you can blame the audio engineer designed on this game that the signals between 360 phase are not not compatible most of the normal standard stereo headphones.

[Nightstick24]

I'd look at your setup before pointing at Apex too much. You shouldn't need a godly setup, but I've never had an issue with not hearing footsteps. You can't get within like a hundred meters without me hearing them, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on someone.

Directionally, again, I've never had an issue. I can effortlessly tell where someone's coming from, not that it does you any good when a potato has better aim than you!

The sound from shots travels an astoundingly long distance, but that's absolutely intentional. The sounds in an actual fight aren't nearly loud enough to travel as far as they do - so they've clearly set the sound to travel much further. Which makes sense, when you hear gunshots lots of people run right to them to fight, which is what you want in a BR, really.

Maybe look at your sound settings in game and on your PC/console. Maybe get some audio drivers? I haven't noticed this issue at all.