The Importance of Spatial Audio in Modern Games and Virtual Environments

In Virtual Reality (VR), virtual environments, and gaming, audio greatly impacts the user, yet it is an area that has been under researched quite recently. While music and environmental sounds have been used to great effect throughout gaming history to craft a more immersive experience, spatial audio doesn't see as much focus. Not only does well made spatial audio allow a user to become more immersed in their virtual experience, it is an important channel for information about their environment. With the advent of VR, games are putting more work into spatial audio and audio design, and now the results are becoming available for both research and game development. This paper will look at not only why spatial audio can greatly improve virtual experiences, but also some of the new technologies that have become available in recent times which make the implementation of spatial audio far easier and of a higher quality than ever before. It will also look at some planned research to examine the advantages of spatial audio in sonified virtual environments using Unity 3D.