August 2021
Nat is the Audio Director at Criterion Games in Guildford, UK, where he’s been working for nearly a decade since moving from Melbourne, Australia. Read on for our quick Q&A…
MASA: It would be great to hear how your career in game audio began.
NATHANIEL: I went to Monash University in Melbourne to do a now obsolete course called “Bachelor of Multimedia Systems (Games Development)”. After that I got a job as a programmer at Torus Games and fell in love with audio implementation. The Australian games industry was pretty volatile then so after a couple of years I started looking for work around the world and moved to Criterion Games in the UK as an audio programmer. It’s a great place to work, so I’m still here, having transitioned into a Technical Audio Designer, and now Audio Director.
MASA: You’ve worked on the Star Wars: Battle Front series and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. How much do you need to ensure your sound stays true to the original, established film soundscape? Was there any space for improvisation?
NATHANIEL: When working on an established IP like Star Wars we always tried to make sure that things felt true to the spirit of the source. There’s a lot of room to create things within that space that can feel both authentic and fresh, and that’s what we tried to target. There’s a lot of work involved, but very fun to do, it’s a great soundscape to be working within.
MASA: With production spread over different studios, what challenges did this present and what systems did you have to put in place to make that work? How do you ensure a consistent soundscape between you all? Must have involved organisation levels of the nth degree!
NATHANIEL: Clear, honest communication is always key – I have a good relationship with my fellow leads and directors and we made sure there was a good flow of feedback and direction across the studios. EA is full of amazing people, so it was really rewarding to get to see the fantastic things people were doing all around the company.
MASA: What other projects have you worked on / are you working on at Criterion Games?
NATHANIEL: We’ve worked on quite a range of things in my time here! I’ve done several Needs for Speed, a Star Wars X-wing VR mission (well worth your time if you have Battlefront 1 and a PSVR), some Battlefields and Battlefronts, and we’ve also helped out some of our EA Partner studios with extra audio support too.
MASA: How do you approach a new project with your team?
NATHANIEL: It does depend a bit per project, but I try to make sure everyone is able to work on creatively fulfilling work, so we tend to be very self-directed – encouraging team members to work on the things that they’re interested in. Usually we will try to identify our ‘audio pillars’ together – the source of truth that we can use as a metric to guide our design, and then it’s just a lot of the design, review, and iterate cycle.
MASA: How has COVID affected working practices? What has been put in place to overcome restrictions?
NATHANIEL: It’s definitely changed the way we work – we’ve all been working from home for a year now, and it very much makes communication harder. We try to make sure we always look out for people, and make sure that people are not suffering in silence, which is much easier to have happen when everyone is isolated. We’ve also worked a lot on making our review process work for remote working, so there’s a lot more recordings and documentation going on than we did before – and something we’d like to keep going even when we do eventually get to work in an office together again.
MASA: And lastly, what are you looking for when judging? In your opinion, what makes the sound design on a game exceptional?
NATHANIEL: Good sound can come from anywhere – what I find engaging is how much the design team has managed to achieve their intended emotional response. Of course a nice clean mix and a good polish goes a long way too!
MASA: Thank you for your time here, Nat. It’s wonderful having you involved in this year’s Awards and all the best with what you’re currently working on.
