Community Feedback Survey - Audio

Feedback and Suggestions
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Hello Travelers!

The community team is back once again to ask you for your feedback! Today we’d like hear from you on the audio in Last Epoch. Audio is a topic that often doesn’t see a lot of feedback, however, audio plays a very critical role in the gameplay experience. An easy example being how much impact the right audio can add to skills.

To get things in the right direction, we have a few questions to help frame responses:

  • What skills audio do you think needs to be reworked and why?
  • What enemy audio do you find most interesting and why?
  • Do you have any other feedback about Last Epoch’s audio you’d like to share?

We’ll be keeping this survey open for the next week (Until 2026-01-27T08:00:00Z). As always, we greatly appreciate everyone’s passion for LE, and would love to hear how we can improve the auditory experience.

“Thanks for spending some time to share your feedback on Last Epoch’s audio. I want the community to know that we have been actively working on improving the audio including, but not limited to, impact and responsiveness and a whole lot more. We’re excited to see what kind of feedback may help shape changes we are working on.”
- Last Epoch Audio Lead

Thank you,
- EHG Community Team

8 Likes
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Something that bothered me a lot last cycle was the storm bolts from Gathering Storm.

I tried making a full storm bolt build, and it was working well, but I ended up stopping it early because the audio (and, to a lesser extent, the visuals) of the dozens of storm bolts per second was just very underwhelming.

Swapping to a lightning Smite on hit with Multistrike was night and day - the audio was a lot more impactful and pleasing.

Edit - I second what @DJSamhein said about on-kill / on-crit voicelines, they do get very repetitive. Either adding more of them for each class, or lowering / offering an option to lower their frequency, would be nice. :slight_smile:

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Personally I don’t have anything to say about the first two topics. The sound for skills and enemies seems fine to me and it’s something I rarely actually pay attention to (which means it’s good enough. If it was something grating I would have noticed it).
And I turn off music in almost every single game, so I also couldn’t give you feedback on it.

I do have 2 suggestions regarding sounds:
1- Add a slider to change the frequency of the class shouts. Those things like “Fools! Fools!”. That gets annoying very fast. It should go from none at all to all the time.
2- Change the sound of either the lizards or the woven eggs being broken. They sound the same and every time I break an egg I look at the minimap trying to see if there’s a lizard. (this is something PoE1 also has with rings and gems leveing).

4 Likes
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I have one very big point regarding audio, voice acting specifically:

You changed the Voice Actor for the Acolyte at some point and I think the current voice actor is inferior in every way. The voices lines are weaker, the tone is way less fitting. The old one was way more sinister and dark, which fits the theme way more, especially with the way she spoke.

I don’t think this will ever change anytime soon because voice acting is freaking expensive compared ot other audio things. But I still want to put it out there and hope enough people agree so that this will get changed at some point.

Voice acting and all the small banter that comes out of the character I play, if it fits gives me so much joy.
The changed voice actor lowered my fun playing Acolyte by a huge margin.

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I’m just hear to mourn Harton’s original pirate voice … I know it was cheesy but I miss it terribly.

“Break yer bones 'pon me body!”

Yarr :smiling_face_with_tear:

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For me is that alot of skills sounds very same like for example melee skills like rive and vengeance or puncture, flurry and any bow skill which has the same “pew” sound to it.

Enemies being hit should also sound more distinct depending on what primary damage hit them or if there was a big hit or a stub then it should be somehow represented.

The enemies hit sound also feels the same throughout the game and only death sounds differ. Enemies should play different sounds when they get significantly hurt.

For background audio, i also mostly mute the audio as alot of areas either have just a generic background or nothing at all so i just play music or watch something on my 2nd monitor. Doubly true when im streaming and watch vod with music and without the lack of something in the background really stands out.

I really like how the audio is at the start of the ruined era, still probably the best audio in the game to date imo. Its atmospheric, dark and helps convey that you’ve reached a dark place in time.

1 Like
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What skills audio do you think needs to be reworked and why?

Blackhole.

With it having pull strength I think of it like a vacuum sucking everything out into space and the noise from debris and such giving it that unique and unquestionably scary sound we all know to well.

Or try to put a spin to this:

Audio from an actual black hole.

Right now blackhole doesnt sound powerful or loud the way it should be. Would help with the power fantasy of casting something so arcane.

4 Likes
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There are a few aspects of the new voice I like but most of it is definitely not as good as the old voice. It’s hard to describe but I like the new one best when it’s an unforced interpretation but some of her lines are so over-the-top it’s a bit laughable.

As to this, I have one ‘complaint’ and then one general criticism.

  1. The void cultists in act 1 that grunt and groan gets to be entirely too obnoxious when you’ve got a plethora of them on screen and currently their volume seems to be mixed much higher than just about everything else.

  2. Fair warning, for films I know this is possible (as I work in that industry) but I have no clue if this would be possible in video games mixing. The overall sound mix is kind of muddy for me. There’s always so much going on that often everything just blends together into a loud mash. I’d like to see a more dynamic flow to the sound that that ebbs and flows with the entrance of new elements and varies with the intensity of the sounds. For instance, mobs of 20-30 spiderlings/wengari/scorpions/etc should fade to a very low minimum if suddenly an ambush spawns and a champion comes in, with the sound of the champion the primary focal point.

6 Likes
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Most melee skills have poor sound quality. Gathering Storm is a good example of this and lacks impact in both its melee and spell components.

This is just my personal opinion, but I also find the Harvest skill sound quite stressful, especially when you have a lot of attack speed.

As for spells, Black Hole is the one that comes to mind when asked which one has poor sound quality.

The background music is cool but lacks variety, especially when fighting a boss. I’m looking for an epic feel in the music to show me that this enemy is special, but it’s more like it’s telling me it’s just a random monster in most cases.

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When I do play I basically play with all audio muted.

Voice lines are repetitive. Skills sound like they don’t have impact or don’t make any real sound at all. And as Necro player I can NOT STAND the voice actor. Class is fun, but I turn her off.

Music isn’t too bad but it also gets rather stale after a short bit.

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I always laugh when I use the fruit vendor and he sounds like Rory McIlroy. "Can I help yew? I enjoy that line a lot. Stay safe traveller!

I love the sound of physical avalanche spell, but when I convert it to cold, I am not as big a fan of the icier crisp sounds, they lose their nice crushing sound to me. I use it anyway, but the physical variant definitely has nice crunch to it. Now that I have said that, I am starting to wonder if they even have different noises, or if it is just maybe the impact noise on a monster it makes when it hits it or it dies changes. I feel like it does minorly but am unsure if imagining it. Ice stormbolt is actually quite satisfying after I just went and listening to it in detail. I actually like ice stormbolt a lot, but I dislike that, it doesn’t have an actual bolt anymore from above. I just tested physical storm bolt to see what it sounds like, it is quite cool too actually. And even the regular one sounds pretty nice but maybe just isn’t sharp enough, it is quite rumbly but not enough splitting cracks. I don’t really think their sounds themselves are that bad, I think it is how they get mixed in with the sounds of many mobs dying, it might be the equalization of the noises in the mix combined with the death sounds of creatures or excessive noise all at once some aspects get lost in the mix, rather than any of them are bad as such. Maybe I need better headphones, I’ll look into that.

I do like crisp sounds of cold skills, but I feel like they are a little snowy crisp, than cracking/splitting ice wall crisp. Or perhaps if even just the noises of freezing or cold spells against frozen targets maybe had more crack to them. Maybe it is just more reverberation to make things sound bigger or more booming since a lot of them are sort of weather related for Shaman.

I do like the windy noises of maelstrom and tornado, but I feel like Tornado could have more “roar” to it, or even whistly gale. I feel like tornado needs more oomph, or an escalating crescendo or something. Maelstrom is very soothing, but the actual sound it makes when it is cast is sort of odd. Perhaps more like those instruments, or when Crocodile Dundee spins his rope (bullroarer) as a momentary casting sound as honestly, for maelstroms it probably should sound sort of like starting a nature motor as well due to its buffs and stacking potential. Vroom vroom.

I also dual wield swords and they slice and shing nicely, but I had tried using maces to see if they had a different melee sound, but I think it is the same? I didn’t test that very thoroughly, but I had considered buying cosmetics for 1h maces or axes you see as I noticed they can be used on swords still, as if they had changed the sound to more of a thud or dinging noise I think it might have been quite satisfying.

Sometimes I think when you walk over wood it is quite soothing, you could add some sort of novelty clogs cosmetics that make all footsteps wooden. Semi-joking there.

I love “I want to learnnnn” it is definitely one of my favourite lines to hear as it is quite amusing, Nothing really grates me too much for monsters. I enjoy Orobyss voice a lot when he speaks.

More splitting, more thudding, and more ding if I had to summarize. But generally I enjoy most of the sounds. Upheaval sounds really nice too. Entangling Roots is quite a pleasing therapeutic sound.

I always used to hear the wrong words when I fought Lagon that made me laugh but I think it must have changed since I last played as I can’t hear it anymore whatever it was. Though I do hear Barney Gumble reciting poetry everytime Rayleh tells me something like “You are too late, this World is already dead”. I have the voice error lines turned off as my Primalist just tries to tell me everything is impossible all the times and we just get into arguments about it. He always eventually does what I tell him anyway.

I also think one and two handed whips should be a thing, but that is a whole other kettle of fish. But I’d probably buy a whip class, just saying. Even if it is gender locked.

1 Like
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I don’t know if this is a bug or not, but since it wasn’t fixed during Season 3, I’m going to consider it an intentional change. In Season 3, the sound impact accompanying the biome change was removed when transitioning between islands in the Monolith. This feels off, as a key visual change lacks its corresponding audio feedback

1 Like
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The bear slamming the ground really should have better audio. I should hear a bear Roar and when he slams it, I should hear the earth shaking. This has been my biggest gripe im audio. Just for once listen to Diablo 4 pulverizer sound when the bear slams the ground. It’s so satisfying to hear

1 Like
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Not only class shouts. Shattering frozen enemies could be annoying too (while running with shrine uhh)

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Most of the audio sounds great. The first thing that pops into my head as the only abysmal audio sound is Lightning Blast… Its the only build that I make sure to turn the audio off on and if I accidentally pick up a shrine while playing another build my ears feel like they are bleeding. It sounded fine before but a patch or two ago I think you guys changed something on it and now it sounds like its overlapping 1000 times. Hope this helps!

2 Likes
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oh boy, audio, here we go i guess.

There are many many aspects in which i think LE needs to improve and refine its sound design, but this post will focus on combat audio related topics, since im not sure EHG will be happy needing to read an endless wall of text. This is something i feel like making a video on would get my points across much better. Also, im just a random dude who plays video games, not some industry veteran audio director.

1A - Sound signatures and character.

  • Feels like there is little sound signature that is unique to masteries across classes in LE Similar whooshing sounds, metal clanks and projectile effects

  • Elemental and unique flavors seem to not really exist in LE. Particular effects escorting particular types of skills can give a lot of flavor to many attacks and effects. If i had to give an example of that, I would give holy damage. If you have played Paladin in a large title by a particularly familiar company as of late, you would notice that attacks performed with holy flavor have a physical hit aspect to them, but are also escorted by an angelical background tone, which gives them quite a distinct flavor

1B - very little sound signature change across skill mutations

  • It seems like when speccing to different skill mutations on a skill tree that change how it works have often little to no change on how it sounds. I think that its a particularly important thing to make this kind of stuff seem more significant

1C - Breaking sound effect monotony

  • Many builds in the game rely on heavy and frequent casting of particular skills with very bold and sharp sound effects. often times, combat simply sounds like a blacksmith who hits his hammer on a sword 5 times per second. It is very monotonic, rarely indifferent repeating sound which makes me just mute the entire game with its combat when playing. It would be good not just to have a pitch range randomizer, but to inject 1-2 additional types of sounds with their own pitch randomizers to such skills.

1D - very high frequency intensive sound signature, unpleasant SFX

  • This goes a bit into the technical side of combat SFX, but it seems like many sound effects rely heavily on high-frequency intensive sound effects, which aggressively cuts through the ambient and other sound effects going around. If i had to give an example, I think Flay is a good one. Being as “spammable” as its meant to be, the sound effect is a little much. It should be dampened, duller, and more pleasant as a repeatable sound.

This is unpleasant to say the least. This entire thing needs a heavy frequency shift.

  • Another example is passive buffs like Aura of Decay, which has a loud, dominant sound loop. These things need to either be loud on cast and near silent on ambient, or entirely silent once cast SFX ends.

1E - if people pay good money for cosmetics, let them enjoy audio flavors of skills too

  • This pretty much speaks for itself. I think that skill cosmetics should contain enhance / different sound effect for skills, preferably with the ability to pick between the vanilla flavor or the new flavor. The most important thing here is not to have a more pleasant one hidden behind the MTX, just to have something a little different. This isn’t just for skills, this is also for general cosmetics.
3 Likes
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To name a few…

  1. Shuriken. The projectile-hit sound does NOT match a tiny throwing star. It’s way closer to an actual axe hacking into something.
  2. Argentus. For fluff’s sake, ARGENTUS. Why must you be SO GODDAMN CRINGY now.
  3. Storm Bolt as stated in the first reply. It’s so goddamn underwhelming, especially if spammed.
  4. Most bow-related skills sound terribly off.
  5. Freeze-shatter sound is WAY TOO LOUD relative to the rest of the given environment. It’s distracting.
  6. Warcry and its Werebear/Totem links. The first link needs an appropriate bear roar, the second does NOT need ANY yells at all (or a thunderous/glacial echo at least).
1 Like
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Here’s my feedback then, though not in the same way it was asked for:

Background score: That one’s at the high end of quality, the background music usually doesn’t intrude too much, it’s… in the background, but still provides the respective feeling it’s supposed to convey. If everything would be that quality then hurray! And it’s memorable as well, which shows it’s a good quality.
Sadly it falls entirely off when we enter end-game, the design there needs to adjust heavily with timeline based core themes being shown properly, and more distinction overall.

Voicelines: Oh boy… where to start. First off… if I have to hear ‘fools fools fools!’ once more without any variation to it then I think I’ll have to strangle my mage on the spot. It’s actually a big reason as to why I stopped playing LE for the time being (besides the mechanical bits). The repetitive intrusive voicelines are extremely grating, and ‘tuning them out’ doesn’t always work. That’s the biggest sound issue in the game currently.

Skills/Effects: Through the bank, some have a bit too much ‘force’ behind it, others lack it. For example the mage’s ‘Black Hole’ has basically no impact sound-wise. It’s completely silent when combined with meteor. Especially with skill triggers there’s a need to have a distinction if only one thing casts or if both happen together, both need to be audible, and if only as a underscore for the other.
This is a universal problem and listing them all individually is not something the community should’ve to do, it warrants a general pass with the sheer mass there.

Enemies/Environments: As @DJSamhein already stated, especially lizard effects and the cocoons are grating. Much like the voiceline… variance! Have not 1 breaking sound but… 5. Have a ‘lizard spawn’ sound but beyond that a variety of sounds they make… without the spawn-sound being replayed again. Voice-cues are a big thing on how people play, and most never realize they do.

Hit effects: The game overall lacks a feedback on hitting enemies. The core sound comes from the effect itself, but there is no ‘impact sounds’ that stand out. Things like a audible bassy ‘thud!’ when for example a enemy is hit with a blunt weapon and stunned. Slashing sounds, hacking sounds… it provides a ridiculous amount of variety in terms of audible feedback towards the player. It’s a hassle to make, takes loads of time but has a hefty effect.

Ohhh, that sounds interesting. Added with a bassy undertone to not sound ‘eerie’ but ‘powerful’ instead I think it would make for a decent direction of a proper black hole sound in-game, yes.

So as a general tldr for the most important things to improve sound design in LE:

  • More impact, bassy heavy sounds
  • Less repetition
  • No ‘overwhelming’ other sounds existing at the same time

That’s the 3 ‘big ones’ existing simply.

2 Likes
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I thought cold was extra crunchy but its really just the LB and it gets worse when it chains. This becomes a very jarring if you’re playing other quiet skills and proccing this with static.

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Before i start ill state I will base my answers off of my take on what is “player emersion and impact of skills audio”. I’m ideally not looking at if the sound is bad, or have any intent on complaining.

  • What skills audio do you think needs to be reworked and why?

Maelstrom - Currently this is a like a small breeze sound to me. Two points for this; one i wish this skill felt more like a storm. Essentially i want it to be more intense. Two as this is a stacking skill i wish the intensity of the storms sound would ramp up as you gained more stacks.

Fury Leap - For me i wish this skill had a yell or shout, i feel like this should bring the feeling of charging into battle. At least with the mind set of using fury leap as a gap closer. To me the current audio feels as if SpongeBob was skipping through a field of flowers. What i would ideally like the audio to feel like the moment in Thor Ragnarök where Hela is defeating him and he gets recharged by thunder and then crashes into the pile of baddies.

Companions (general) - The footsteps of each companion ideally should be different weights. I feel the bear should have a deeper and more pronounced thud while the wolves should be a quicker paced trot or tapping.

War cry - currently to me this skill has two points the shout and the shouts impact wave sound. I don’t believe they flow together and are two separate pieces. I wish the skill was a more fluid sound and it was the intensity of the shout that gave you the impact. Opposed to the Yaa … puff.

Totems - Currently totems when summoned sound the same, at the very least thorn and fury totem sound the same. This takes away from the skills identity in my opinion. Ideally as visually these skill emerge from the ground, i would like move of a bursting sound. Kind of like a rumbling then a swoosh of some dirt flying by. If you listen to an object hit another object which does not get effected and makes a thud. And when you hear the same object hit something and breaks through it (emerge) the sound changes to a more iritic wave like crackle to me.

Tornado - This skills sound to me is too clean and flat. If you listen to recordings of tornados they are a “dirtier” sound. Kind of like when driving down a dirt road with the window open fast and the wind is encapsulating your ear and hindering other sounds and you hear the specks of dirt and rocks flying by. Ideally i would like the tornados position to affect the volume where; it increases if close to the player and fads away as it goes away.

Serpent strike - Basically i would like it more snake like. Currently it feels like a polished metal sound to me. i would like it more like the feeling of a snake biting, somewhere between the sound of an over pressured coke being opened and dragging chains.

Swipe - currently this skill feels as if your just hearing the after effect of the skill moving through the air. I wish it had a ripping sound ideally only if it hits a target. This rip should be more “primal” and not clean like cutting paper with scissor. More like ripping apart an old sock with to many holes, there’s the initial tear sound then the Velcro esk rip finished with a pop.

Ill stop here but do have more skill comments.

  • What enemy audio do you find most interesting and why?

No question here is the loot filter sound “Anvil” this is like a deep resonating sound.

  • Do you have any other feedback about Last Epoch’s audio you’d like to share?

Three things on the topic of sounds. First being i wish if you converted a skills element to another the audio would change to reflect that. ill use Storm Bolt as a positive example. by default its lightning and sounds like a crackle. if you change its element to either physical or cold the audio of the bolt changes to reflect that element. Where if you say go physical storm bolt is now more a punch then a crackle.
The other thing is if i buy a skill mtx that changes the “elemental feel” of the skill visually i would like the audio to reflect that. take the skill harvest for an example by default to me its a smooth slicing sound. Lets pretend there is a MTX for harvest that makes it like an energy wave slash, i would like the skill to not only change the visual to an energy look but also have the audio impact of an energy weapon slashing through. IM assuming the default sound in people mind goes to lightsaber but that’s not my thought. It would be more of an organic pulsating sound as energy is a “living” thing.
Third and lastly i like when skills have a sound they make when used and a different sound they make when used an collide with an object,

To close if anything i said already is in the game i apologize for redundant remarks and maybe this old man should get his hearing checked :).