Apex Legends™: Audio Update

Apex has evolved so much since its initial launch, but something that has not changed is our intention for the sound of Apex: a balance of feedback, immersion, and emotion. Our primary focus is feedback, which  delivers critical information to understand each situation, while immersion and emotion are what make the world of Apex unique and real. We strive to ensure every sound belongs in the Outlands and behaves in predictable ways. It’s worth mentioning that these features we’re adding for 27.0 aren’t all we have in store, but are a significant first step with more to come.

In addition to rigorous internal testing, we rely heavily on our community’s experience to help us understand, improve, and prioritize our efforts. Just like every aspect of Apex Legends, audio is constantly developing and some of the changes we've been working on are nearly ready to be added to the game. Here’s a TLDR of everything we’re covering today that will be available with our upcoming season 27 on November 4, 2025:

• Updated Mixing: a new mix option to give each player the choice of how they prefer to experience the game—you can choose from the “Original” or the new “Focused” mix which reduces the volume of local player weapons (but not enemies), completely removes squadmate footsteps and increases enemy footsteps.
• Threat System: a dynamic evaluation of potential danger to drive contextual mix decisions for each player.
• Multiband Sidechain Compression: allows an active sound to dynamically lower the volume of other sounds; reducing clutter and increasing consistency. 
• Environmental Audio Processing: new tech to allow for a more gradual blend as you approach and move between openings and doorways.
• Observability: new telemetry to track each time the game adjusts an enemy footstep event to allow for additional monitoring across different maps and gamemodes.

OVERVIEW

There are multiple methods used to dynamically affect the game mix to feature critical sounds when needed. Our most basic method of making changes to the balance of sounds during the game are what we call "mix snapshots," which we use to modify the volume and audible distance of individual and categories of sounds. 

Audio Voice Priority is the second layer of complexity within our audio system which helps to ensure that the sounds that matter most are played in favor of others. Some examples of this are enemy sounds being prioritized over squadmates, and threat sounds (ex. weapons, explosions) prioritized over ambient sounds. A sound's priority value is determined based on a number of factors including when it was started, its distance from you, volume, and more. 

Occlusion and reverb are two more keys to the puzzle that help locate sounds accurately. A sound behind a surface will have its frequency modified according to the density of the material occluding it, and the reverberation helps to identify if the sound is interior or exterior and the size of that space. This helps to identify when a sound source is in the same space as you or somewhere else. Frequency and gain are also modified by distance from the player, helping to pin-point the sound’s emitting position. All of these systems work together to provide a balance of immersion and clarity. The experience feels natural when working well, but can be jarring when it isn’t.

UPDATED MIXING

The amount of Legends, weapons, and other sources of sound has increased over our time in the Outlands and we’ve worked to maintain a consistent sonic signature for our universe. In addition to other technologies, we’ve been working on a new mix option to give each player the choice of how they prefer to experience the game.

The new "Focused Mix" is optimized for threat detection and will be enabled by default starting in season 27, but you’ll be able to swap to the "Original Mix" that was previously the standard via the Audio Options should you prefer. Here’s some of the key differences:

• Lowered volume for your weapons and abilities
• Completely removed squadmate footsteps
• Louder enemy footsteps: in particular a slight reduction in the volume delta between jogging and sprinting

As with everything, your feedback will be critical for us on this feature and we'll be making adjustments over time.

THREAT SYSTEM

What is important sonically changes moment to moment, and player to player. We've been working on a dynamic threat system to help drive contextual decisions that can affect the mix. Data (enemy proximity, line of sight, bullet proximity, and more) is continually evaluated to calculate a unique threat value for each player. That value can be used to affect the mix in many ways such as lowering the volume or audible distance of sounds that provide flavor but aren’t priority during combat, or to increase the volume of key indicators of potential threats such as enemy footsteps.

We’re also exploring new ways of using this threat evaluation to grant other audio systems more contextual awareness. For example, the game now checks your squad’s threat level when deciding whether or not to let Legends say non-combat dialogue lines and keep you in the right type of mindset.

MULTIBAND SIDECHAIN COMPRESSION

Multiband Sidechain Compression will be joining the Apex Legends sound squad in season 27. This will allow us to use an active sound to dynamically lower the volume of other sounds and create small 'pockets' for targeted sounds to play in; reducing clutter to increasing their consistency.

We’re balancing this tech to work in tandem with our other initiatives to combine for a smooth, clear mix that lets critical audio cues be heard when most needed without being distracting. We’ve started by isolating primary frequencies of enemy footsteps and using them to reduce sounds that typically overwhelm them (ex. explosions, ordnance, etc). This should help you hear your enemies more clearly before they sneak up on you and without needing to max out your volume.

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIO PROCESSING

Environments should feel and sound believable and that includes each building and interior space. In Apex, we define the audio properties for these to tell the audio engine which reverb to use, amount of audio occlusion, ambient sounds, and more. Our current transition between different spaces is immediate: the moment you step through a doorway, all of these audio properties flip over the opposing environment. That’s not the most immersive experience, so we’ve developed some new tech to allow for a more gradual blend. As you approach openings and doorways, the sound environment will dynamically blend towards the exterior values.

OBSERVABILITY

We’ve put in a lot of effort towards monitoring the behavior of our audio systems using new tools and telemetry. Even though enemy footsteps are one of the most prioritized audio events in our game, there is still the odd situation where we may cull them for performance and/or audio clarity, for example when there are more audible footsteps triggered than can be effectively discerned. More recently, we’ve set up new telemetry to track each time the game adjusts an enemy footstep event to allow for additional monitoring across different maps and gamemodes. This will also give us a much broader understanding of how our audio engine behaves in a wide range of situations.

Back with the launch of Season 25, we added a feature that prompts you to submit audio logs from matches where an unusually high number of audio footstep cancellations were detected. Your submissions allow us to replay audio logs and debug a 1:1 recording of game related sounds that happened inside of our audio engine throughout the course of that match. Using this data, we’ve already made meaningful improvements such as rebalancing prioritization of less important events (ex. downed footsteps) and this is just the beginning. Please continue to send your logs when prompted to help us with data collection, fixes, and improve the auditory experience in the Outlands for all.

SEE YOU ON THE DROPSHIP

Everything we’ve chatted about above will be live when season 27 drops on November 4, 2025. We’re excited for the continued evolution of Apex Legend’s audio and appreciate your continued feedback with each and every match. As a reminder, any match with significant audio drops will result in a report prompt once you’ve finished with that match. Please continue to send those through as each one has the potential to have an impact.

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