Borderlands 3 will have approximately 45 bajillion guns, including guns that “chase down enemies while hurling verbal insults”, guns that fire volcanoes, and guns that deal a new elemental damage type: radiation. All those guns generate a lot of noise—enough that the game already has 25 times more .wav files for weapon firing sounds than Borderlands 2 did, according to Gearbox Software senior sound designer Joshua Davidson.
Currently, Borderlands 3 has 7,500 individual .wav files for weapons, while Borderlands 2 had just 300, and there are more on the way, Davidson confirmed in a tweet. Here’s hoping that at least 1,000 are dedicated to those verbal insults (seriously, I haven’t even seen that gun in action and it’s already my favorite in the game).
So yeah….#Borderlands3 is currently sitting at just over 7,500 individual .wav files for the weapon firing sounds. For perspective, BL2 shipped a little over 300 .wav files to cover all the guns and their manufacturers. And yes, we’re still not done. Pew pew! #GameAudioApril 26, 2019
I’m pretty astonished that Borderlands 2 had as few gun sounds as it did, considering the sheer number of weapons it had. Hopefully that means Borderlands 3 weapons will feel more unique, and can be differentiated by more than just their damage numbers. I’m looking forward to hearing what sound the gun firing “self-propelling bullet shields” makes—and no, I have no clue what that means either.
For more on Borderlands 3, here’s everything you need to know. It’s due to release September 13.