While graphical fidelity and fluidity of gameplay are both features that often get a lot of praise when players talk about a game they love, sound is often an aspect that gets somewhat lost in the shuffle.
Sure, some fans value game OSTs enough to listen to them outside of gameplay, but sound effects, the little pops, bangs and whizzes that bring the game to life, are rarely spotlighted to the same degree.
However, a League of Legends player has taken to Reddit in an attempt to make sure that their game’s keystone and rune sound effects get the credit they deserve.
League of Legends Players Highlight Great Sound Effects
User Connect-Protection96 began the thread by saying that they’d never seen Riot Games receive any praise for these sound effects, explaining: “This is a small appreciation post, but whoever made the sound effects for the primary keystones did a REALLY good job at capturing the theme of the respective tree.”
They added that this is something that helps them during gameplay, being able to distinguish which abilities or attacks an enemy is activating just by the sounds making for “a REALLY satisfying experience”.
Other users gave shout-outs to sounds they particularly enjoy, with user _omnom_ complimenting the conqueror keystone’s effect and several users lavishing praise upon the dark harvest keystone’s sound, with one going so far as to call it “orgasmic”.
The electrocute keystone and demolish rune also got some love for being pretty satisfying.
Another user in the thread, fukato, lamented that sound designers are always underappreciated, with mmat7 adding that they think this happens because: “when sound design is good it all fits and blends in so well barely anyone even notices it as a ‘separate thing’.”
User Mungus_Prime suggested that Riot should do more to showcase how sound designs are made, saying: “DOOM got a lot of praise because they literally made videos about sound design.”
This prompted a response from Cashmiir, a Senior Editorial Writer at Riot, who linked to several posts on the company’s website containing interviews with members of League’s audio department.
“They're my favourite folks to work with because they're wicked humble and talented and are always so excited to talk about their work and explain it to me.”, she added.
If you’re looking for more League of Legends news, check out all the latest updates in this article.