When it comes to Apex Legend’s audio, Respawn seems to fix one thing while breaking another. The game has had historically poor audio since its release almost two years ago, and Season 7, unfortunately, is no different.
What started as audio glitches for footsteps quickly graduated to entire areas – such as Turbine and the Waterfall by Hammond Labs on the new map, Olympus – playing with no sound at all. Weapons sounded like BB guns, and the chance of hearing your enemy’s footsteps was even lower than it usually is.
Respawn did release a hotfix a week into the Season 7 release, but now we’re a few weeks in, and did the patch make any difference to the audio? Yes, and no. It’s clear that the game still has some serious issues when it comes to its audio performance.
First up, those areas I mentioned – Turbine and Hammond Labs specifically – have had their audio drastically improved. It’s rare now to experience the same sound-outage that occurred at Season launch, so that’s a big positive.
However, in doing so, the audio seems to have been messed up in the area surrounding Solar Array. If you’ve walked around that part of the map recently, you’ll know what I mean. It sounds like the ambient sound has been turned up 200%, with the sound of squawking seagulls and reversing trucks drowning out other in-game sounds
Likewise, the occurrences of phantom Octane Legs and random shield cells popping when there are no enemies nearby suggest that Respawn still has to work on some key fixes. This audio clutter is a turn-off for the competitive/professional community, with character footsteps an essential part of a Battle Royale.
Since the last update, have you noticed an improvement in audio?
Respawn are still working to keep making improvements 🔊
— Apex Legends News (@alphaINTEL) November 22, 2020
Audio is a problem that Respawn has been keen to address for many months now, but the lack of action from the devs is beginning to cause a rupture in the community. Many of the patch notes address audio fixes and adjustments, and yet many think that there are still too many problems.
Will we see any significant changes to the audio in coming patches? Maybe. There is evidence to suggest that the audio problems are rooted in the background sounds/healing sounds being played all over the map simultaneously, a detail uncovered thanks to one attentive player on Reddit.
