Exploring the unique game audio for ‘Enotria: The Last Song’: How musical instruments shaped its dark fantasy sound design

Enotria: The Last Song is a “soulslike” action role-playing game inspired by Italian folklore and traditional theater, developed and published by Jyamma Games. The game takes place in a land trapped by an eternal play, the Canovaccio.

(“Soulslike” is a subgenre of action role-playing games known for high difficulty level and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting.)

The player takes on the role of the Maskless One, a being created by the mysterious Pulcinella, and embarks on a journey that will take them through sunny and colorful landscapes, fast-paced melee combat, and quests with mythical beasts and ancient gods. In the world of Enotria, everything is tied to music. The world was born from a First Song, and the main character was created by Pulcinella’s mandolin melody. This became a core idea in the audio and music direction of the game, pushing them towards a more experimental approach that blends musical elements into sound effects.

Here, Audio Director Aram Shahbazians and Lead Sound Designer Camilla Coccia talk about how they designed Enotria’s audio experience by recording traditional Italian musical instruments as the foundation for the game’s sound design, blending them into everything, from ambiences to weapons or spells, as well as how they gave a different character to each location in game, how they used voiceovers, and how they approached the balance in the mix.

Enotria: The Last Song – Summer Game Fest Trailer

How did you balance the vibrant Mediterranean atmospheres with the gritty and violent tones of the combat in the sound design?

Aram Shahbazians (AS): One of the core principles for Enotria’s audio direction was contrast: light vs. dark, natural vs. unnatural. Our first goal was to strongly convey the sunny Mediterranean visuals with audio, making the world feel alive and tangible.

For that reason, during our pre-production, we researched how the Italian soundscape changes based on region and season. The Mediterranean isn’t a monolithic environment; it sounds quite different depending on location, time of year, and even time of day, so we had plenty of elements to choose from to populate each area of the game.

Our first goal was to strongly convey the sunny Mediterranean visuals with audio, making the world feel alive and tangible.

The sea is one of the most recurring ambiences in the game, so for areas like Quinta and Falesia Magna, we designed it to replicate the bright wave sounds that you can hear on the Italian coast, with their rhythm shaped by the enclosed bays. The same attention went into designing the wind sounds, which are full of warm tones, flowing through olive groves and maritime pines. These details might not always be consciously noticed, but they allow the world to feel distinctly Mediterranean.

That said, Enotria is also a corrupted world, where reality has been twisted by a curse. We represented this by having all these elements contrasting with unnatural, dark textures, derived from a wide range of musical instruments. This shift isn’t always immediately noticeable, and we tried to balance it differently depending on the area and the mood that we wanted to achieve.

Camilla Coccia (CC): We quickly realized that leaning too much into realism wouldn’t capture the surreal tone of the world, so we embraced a stylized approach, which consisted of balancing natural sounds and layers derived from musical instruments and synths. The natural soundscape gives a sense of familiarity, especially if you have traveled around in the Mediterranean regions, while the processed elements help us in driving the tension, the sense of danger, and reminding the player of the fantastical nature of Enotria’s world.

We used ambient emitters scattered throughout the map to shape the identity of each location, tying sound closely to the visual atmosphere.

We used ambient emitters scattered throughout the map to shape the identity of each location, tying sound closely to the visual atmosphere. In areas like Quinta and Falesia, you can hear the calls of birds specific to the Italian regions that inspired these locations. But as you step into places like the dark monastery of Maja or the swamps of the Venice-like city of Litumnia, those same birds take on an eerie tone, completely shifting the atmosphere. To design the interiors, we cleaned up the room tones, carving out space for additional synthetic layers, choosing which frequencies to emphasize in each situation.

A process I really enjoyed was using sound to tell a story, placing narrative cues that reinforce the world’s lore. For example, as a player approaches the castle where the first major boss resides, they can already hear his laughter and the sound of him causing havoc, subtle hints at the size and nature of the enemy waiting ahead. Other examples include the hidden triggers in Falesia, which emphasize the sounds of a war that once tore the city apart. In Litumnia, panoramic views are accompanied by gondolier songs echoing through the canals, muffled church bells, and distant noises from the terrifying experiments of the Forge. It was a way to reward attentive players who take the time to explore the world.

From L to R: Camilla Coccia (Lead Sound Designer) and Aram Shahbazians (Audio Director) from the Jyamma audio team, during the mixing session.

The concept of Song is at the core of the narrative of the game, and music seems to have importance in the story. How did you integrate this element into the design of Enotria’s audEntoria_sound-03io world?

AS: Music is the key element in the narrative of Enotria, so we explored ways to weave this concept in the audio direction as well. One idea that stood out and immediately inspired us was to have every sound, whether a spell, an ambience, or even a sword, crafted using musical instruments as a starting point, with very few exceptions. This idea felt right for such a title, and it quickly became our golden rule to design sounds. It ensured that the world itself remained tied to the game’s themes, reinforcing the idea that reality is shaped by Song.

One idea that stood out and immediately inspired us was to have every sound[…]crafted using musical instruments

We were already researching a wide range of traditional instruments from the Italian and Mediterranean area for the game’s soundtrack, so it felt natural to extend this research to find sources that could help us design sounds. We ended up recording instruments with very particular resonances and tones. We mostly worked with plucked strings like mandolin and colascione, and with bowed strings such as Calabrian and Greek lyres, viola da gamba, viella, venturing sometimes into non-Mediterranean territories with the tagelharpa and the suka biłgorajska (instruments typical of the Nordic and Slavic regions). Other sources that helped a lot to design Enotria’s sounds were traditional percussion and voices. The latter are perhaps the most recognizable elements, as we relied heavily on the singing styles of Southern Italy, which proved a powerful source when processed properly and layered with other sounds.

The key manifestation of this concept is Ardore, the power of Pulcinella’s song that fuels the protagonist’s abilities. We treated it as an extension of the Song itself, and we used it as the main building block for all the magic elements that derive from it.

I blended them with humming vocals, bowed instruments, and whale calls processed with phase and pitch shifters, and granular synthesis, to get an otherworldly vibe.

One of these elements, the Rift, was designed by using this exact approach. Rifts narratively are tears in the fabric of reality that can alter the surrounding environment if interacted with. The particle-like sounds initially designed for Ardore were the starting point from which I designed the echoes heard from afar. I blended them with humming vocals, bowed instruments, and whale calls processed with phase and pitch shifters, and granular synthesis, to get an otherworldly vibe. The rift opening sequence was based on sources gathered from mandolin tremolos, low plucked strings from the mandolincello and colascione, different bowings on the tagelharpa, and a final vocal signature sound to distinguish between different kinds of Rifts.

The Maskless One, Enotria’s main character.

CC: Having access to a wide range of musical instruments as sources allowed us to be really creative. Ardore is the core magical force of Enotria, and its sound identity is built around string instruments. Visually, it’s represented through a combination of flowing threads and swirling particles, so we followed the same concept in the audio design.

Having access to a wide range of musical instruments as sources allowed us to be really creative.

Bonfires, spells, and buffs are all elements that are strictly connected to Ardore, so it was almost an inevitable choice to design them from recordings of mandolins and other string instruments performing a variety of techniques, such as tremolos or pizzicato. Bonfires are a breathing point in every Soulslike game. In Enotria, they play an important role in the narrative, as Pulcinella appears next to them playing his mandolin, guiding the players on their journey.

Enotria’s bonfire is visually represented by a string tied in a knot, constantly pulling and struggling to break free. I wanted to convey this idea that the bonfire is an extension of Pulcinella’s power, so I designed a “tonal wind” from his mandolin music that subtly guides the player toward the checkpoint from afar. As the player gets closer to it, this tonal wind blends with dissonant string textures to emphasize the vibration of the bonfire trying to break loose.

The bonfire: a vibrating string tied in a knot.

This build-up leads to an explosion with a musical tone that sounds a bit like a voice being freed, an audio feedback for reaching safety.

The bonfire is activated by the main character, plucking it like a musical instrument. The resulting sound was built by processing a combination of cello, mandoloncello, synths, and a space cello. The following low resonances of the plucked string become more and more unstable, with particle-like details obtained by running the sources through several automated patches of Soundtoys’ FilterFreak and Tremolator. This build-up leads to an explosion with a musical tone that sounds a bit like a voice being freed, an audio feedback for reaching safety. The activated bonfire is designed to be more subtle and relaxing, since the players are supposed to spend a long time in the upgrades menu. ASMR-like airy textures combined with overtones run through Soundtoys Crystallizer, Relab Development’s Sonsig Rev-A, and Soundtoys Tremolator did the trick to give it a swirling nature.

One of the most challenging elements to design was the enemy’s body dissolving into a cloud of Ardore and smoke upon defeat. My go-to tool to design its sound was Phase Plant by Kilohearts. To create those particle details, I built a custom patch using an LFO to control polyphony, grain density, detuning, and voice spread. Testing it in-game made me realize that the resulting sound could become overbearing when the players were defeating too many enemies in a row, so my patch became pretty handy when I had to adapt the sound and create asset variations for smaller enemies and for cinematic moments that needed either thinner or larger sounding variants.

Pulcinella is often found near bonfires, playing his mandolin.

What were the creative and technical challenges in designing unique but effective sounds for the weapons? Can you talk about your approach to combat audio design?

CC: Enotria features over a hundred different types of weapons that can be used by both the player and the enemies. Since enemies can share not only the same weapons but also the same animations, we needed a clear categorization system that would consider the weapon type and the moveset to decide which audio sources to play. I’ve always liked how shooters give each firearm a distinct personality through sound, and I wanted to follow a similar approach. Melee weapon sound design sometimes runs the risk of relying on a limited pool of source material, mostly metal blades swinging the air or hitting something, but I wanted to try to push beyond that and find a different solution for our needs. I wanted the sound to clearly convey information on what the player is wielding: the weapon material, weight, and agility.

I’ve designed every weapon starting from a musical instrument

Following the audio identity of the game, even here, I’ve designed every weapon starting from a musical instrument, choosing different sources to match each weapon’s character. The longsword is the first weapon the players will find in the game, so I designed it by layering sounds of cymbals. This gave the longsword a metallic sound that feels familiar to players, while still hinting at the more musical design that comes later.

For the greatsword, I worked with prepared piano strings to get a sharp sound. Saturation and parallel compression were simple but effective tools to give it that worn and sturdy quality.

To support the fast and precise moveset of the saber, I recorded guitar and harp strings spinning in the air to get fast, tonal whooshes.

To support the fast and precise moveset of the saber, I recorded guitar and harp strings spinning in the air to get fast, tonal whooshes. By contrast, heavier weapons like the ultragreatsword and the ultrahammer had to feel “like a heap of raw iron,” so the deep resonances found in log drums and gongs were the key for their sound. Even ranged weapons, like war bows, were created with violin strings. To keep the mix clean and avoid ear fatigue, I focused on using tonal layers mainly to support slower movements like wind-ups, heavy attacks, and ground impacts, rather than overusing them.

At times, I ended up enhancing certain details with non-musical elements. I still remember the first time I saw the concept art for an ultrahammer made from a wine barrel. Being Italian, I naturally had a wine bottle at home, and used it to record the sloshing liquid sounds inside the barrel when it impacts the ground.

Player damage sounds were designed to sit in the mid-range, with less punch, making sure they cut through the mix

Damage feedback is another crucial element of the combat system. Player damage sounds were designed to sit in the mid-range, with less punch, making sure they cut through the mix to clearly communicate negative feedback. Enemy damage, on the other hand, needed to be clearer and punchier, making it instantly distinguishable.

Every type of damage was built to reflect the weapon type, attack, and enemy it was used against. I added specific layers based on the materials the enemies are wearing or are made of, crumbling rock layers for stone-based enemies, and heavy metallic armor for soldiers. Even gore varies, with thicker, more viscous sounds for enemies that bleed ink.

All these distinctions led to hundreds of unique assets, structured with multiple layers of switch containers in Wwise to give us enough control, especially for the tuning and mixing phase.

AS: Due to the fast-paced nature of the combat in Enotria, prioritizing clarity in the mix was crucial when designing other sounds that could clash with weapon whooshes and hits.

when a successful parry is performed, its feedback takes priority over other sounds

One of the most frequent audio events requiring particular care was the parry sound. To design it, I went through several iterations to find the right balance between providing satisfying feedback, making the type of parry performed clearly recognizable, and leaving enough space for the other weapons. It is true that when a successful parry is performed, its feedback takes priority over other sounds, however, keeping the end tails of the assets clean and short helped in avoiding clashes with weapon whooshes, since enemies could react quickly, even to a well-timed parry.

The Unraveling mechanic was another area where leaving enough space in the mix became fundamental. When enemies are stunned, they enter a state called Unraveling, momentarily exposing them to critical damage. This information had to always reach the player, but since it could be triggered in virtually any combat scenario, it required a few technical adjustments to work consistently. I designed the Unraveling sound by splitting the low-end and high-end layers into two separate events. This allowed us to treat them differently in the mix using RTPCs, prioritizing the high-end layer when multiple audio events were playing simultaneously.

The variety of environments is quite important in this game. Can you talk about your approach to the ambience design?

AS: Our goal from the start was to give a distinct identity to each location in the game. We weren’t afraid to go over the top when necessary, populating the world with strange and unique sounds that contrast with the more traditional and relaxing Mediterranean nature.

The player is initially introduced to theater actors performing on a stage in the middle of a beach

A key example of this is the city of Quinta, one of the first areas that the player encounters during their journey. We played a lot with building up the moment the player enter the city, making the outskirts feel initially safe and comforting with natural elements such as the sea breeze, rustling sunflower fields, or the water gently lapping the warm shores, and then slowly insert more and more elements that would break the comfort zone. The player is initially introduced to theater actors performing on a stage in the middle of a beach, and then, upon reaching the entrance to the city, they are welcomed by an atmosphere of cheerful partying.

Music became a core element of this ambience in the form of groups of musicians dancing and performing throughout the city.

Quinta is a town stuck in an eternal celebration, where actors are mindlessly repeating their lines while attacking the player or engaging in violent cannibalism. The main inspiration for this atmosphere was the typical Italian town celebration called “sagra.” We really wanted to recreate that sense of chaos and revelry experienced in those moments. Music became a core element of this ambience in the form of groups of musicians dancing and performing throughout the city. We recorded Tarantella del Gargano, a traditional Italian tune, with each instrument performing separately, and we assigned each line to the corresponding musician in-game, so that the player could live-mix the track by killing the musicians they didn’t like, muting their instrument. (No real musicians were harmed in this process!)

Quinta, the town of eternal celebration.

Voiceovers have been another important part of characterizing each location. We worked alongside OmUk and Four For Music to record hundreds of voice lines and effects.

For the area of Quinta, we really pushed the voice actors to perform with as much insanity as they could gather, playing on the contrast between what was being said and how it was being said. One of the best parts was seeing the voice actors really getting into it and improvising some lines on their own, or trying their best to keep a straight face when saying lines such as: “Oregano and mustard, perfect seasoning for the flesh.”

Singing NPCs also helped set the right atmosphere, with gondoliers lamenting their fate in Litumnia or noblewomen quietly humming in the Highborn Streets.

Litumnia, a labyrinth of canals and narrow streets, inspired by Venice.

Voices also became layers of some of the ambiences. In the Monastery of Maja, a cursed area where the player fights Vermiglio, the Red Prior, we recorded several prayers, and Camilla implemented them in Wwise to behave like wind gusts around the player.

We wanted most areas to have a natural echo, so we researched and designed IRs that would fit our needs

Reverb is another important aspect of how the environments sound. We had to cover several locations, each with its own distinct morphology, so we ended up relying a lot on Wwise’s Convolution Reverb. We wanted most areas to have a natural echo, so we researched and designed IRs that would fit our needs, especially for environments such as sea caves or sandy beaches. Over the course of development, we found out that some other areas might benefit more from using RoomVerb, where we could eventually push certain elements to an extreme if needed.

CC: Given the extension of the world of Enotria, early in production, we spent a lot of time iterating on a custom ambience system, requesting specific features and behaviors that would let us easily manage occlusion, reverb, and prioritization on a case-by-case basis. One of the requested features was to override the occlusion system for the main character’s sounds by replacing it with the listener’s position occlusion values. Since this is a third-person game with several narrow interior spaces, we had instances of the listener being outside of the interior while the main character was already inside. The system solved many edge cases that felt unnatural.

The Hub is the most frequently visited area in the game. It is an old wooden theatre, where the player can meet Pulcinella and interact with other quest-related NPCs. What made this place particularly interesting is that it holds traces of every major region in the game: Falesia, Quinta, and Litumnia — like a miniature version of the entire world in a single space. That’s what drove my choice to treat it like a narrative device.

The Hub and the Gods’ rooms.

As the player progresses in the main storyline, they unlock access to the three gods: Veltha, Maja, and Litho. Each one eventually appears in a dedicated room within the theatre. These rooms depart from the aesthetic of the Hub and mirror the environments where the player first met each god: a sandy temple for Veltha, a lush and dark forest for Maja, and a stone cave for Litho.

Both Veltha and Maja feature ambiences designed with processed voice samples taken from their boss fights.

I revisited the ambiences I had originally designed for those areas, where I had already introduced tonal layers tied to each god’s lore. Both Veltha and Maja feature ambiences designed with processed voice samples taken from their boss fights. These ambiences became the foundation for their rooms in the Hub. I created intimate versions of them, acting as environmental leitmotifs, echoing the player’s earlier encounters.

One of my favourite ambiences to design was Strale Velata, the final area of the game, surrounded by an otherworldly maelstrom. The thunder strikes were made with some of the signature instruments of Arlecchino’s boss music: harpsichord, cello tremolos and rise, and scream effects that we recorded with Sofia’s choir during our studio sessions. We quickly realized during recording that those effects were pretty demanding on the vocal cords, so we ended up with a limited number of usable takes. To compensate for this, and spare the singers, I ran the recordings through a Crystallizer delay, and convolution modulated by a wavetable, to get a larger sound, building up to the thunder strike. For the thunder aftermath, I went with soft high vocals with multiple delays that blend into the distant rumble, while the wind gusts were made by processing woodwinds and by time-stretching harpsichord arpeggios.

Strale Velata, the final area of the game.

Boss fights are considered the most important parts of a Soulslike. How did you approach the sound design of the main bosses and the main dialogues?

CC: The bosses in Enotria were a lot of fun to work on, especially because each one is based on a theatrical trope. Zanni is driven by hunger, while Captain Spaventa hides behind heavy armor and arrogance to cover up his cowardice. I wanted their sound design to reflect those personalities, exaggerating certain elements to make their traits immediately recognizable.

I designed all of Captain Spaventa’s armor foley using creaks and groans from large metal objects. The goal was to make him feel like a rusted, empty suit of armor, hinting at his real appearance in phase two, when he loses it.

I designed all the attacks and foley in tune with the music.

It was essential for me to work closely with Aram and know in advance the key, tone, and instrumentation he planned for each boss music theme. Based on those elements, I designed all the attacks and foley in tune with the music. I used bell and rattle percussion for Spaventa’s foley sounds to create a rhythmic layer that would blend with his music during the fight.

His weapon is unique — a gunblade that’s half trident, half rifle. Given the boastful nature of the character, I wanted to give his weapon that same feel, taking inspiration from the combat sounds of anime and old westerns. I achieved that vintage anime sound for the trident whooshes by hyper-saturating the layers and adding parallel compression and pitch modulation on the tails. The rifle shots are basically a flintlock on steroids, with exaggerated ignition sounds and whistling pass-bys.

Captain Spaventa, one of the major bosses of Enotria.

One thing I had to figure out was how to make the boss’s magic stand out from the player’s. The solution came by thinking almost like an orchestrator: if the player’s spells were mostly built from string instruments, then the boss needed to sound the opposite. For Arlecchino, that meant using woodwinds for his Dark Ardore attacks. It gave them a totally different character and made the contrast really clear in the mix.

AS: We really wanted the boss fights to feel like theatrical performances, with the bosses delivering their lines with a sense of drama and ritual. After all, most of the bosses of Enotria are tied to traditional Italian theatre, the Commedia dell’Arte. This led us to take a theatrical approach to voice direction, emphasizing stylized and exaggerated performances.

The idea was to reinforce their themes, often feeling like rehearsed monologues. This approach helped shape memorable characters, as if they were performers desperately trying to play their part, even in combat.

Arlecchino preparing for battle.

My favourite character in this regard has been Litho, one of the most enigmatic figures in the game. To emphasize its otherworldly nature, we designed its voice by recording over ten different voice actors delivering the lines with various emotions, cadences, and intensities. These performances were then processed and combined to create a shifting effect, sometimes whispering, sometimes overlapping, sometimes clashing. To emphasize some of its key lines, we added recordings of a choir whispering or shouting them, creating the impression of this massive, almost deafening wall of sound. This work really paid off well, giving Litho an unsettling presence, as if its voice was fragmented across dimensions.

Can you talk about the sound design of the UI/UX?

CC: I liked the idea of getting unusual resonances from traditional instruments. I recorded myself hitting, shaking, and generally mistreating the triccaballacca, or scraping sponges, rubber balls, and other objects on string instruments. The Sennheiser MKH 416 was my preferred choice to record these effects, since it’s a versatile microphone, perfect for quickly capturing a wide range of sources with clarity and detail, which was essential given the fast-paced nature of our production schedule.

I realized that (in some cases) using only musical instruments wasn’t always enough, so I supported certain elements with synth layers

While working on it, I realized that (in some cases) using only musical instruments wasn’t always enough, so I supported certain elements with synth layers and applied lots of transient shaper and de-noising effects to clean them up and get a brighter sound.

To avoid ear fatigue, I went with non-tonal sources for fast interactions, like menu selection buttons, and decided instead, case by case, where to go with more articulate designs and denser sources, like voice recordings. A small exception to this is the navigation sound, which is designed to repeat a drum pattern when players scroll quickly through items.

By contrast, vocals were my main source for the ‘boss defeated’ widget, which always plays after the players defeat a major enemy.

By contrast, vocals were my main source for the “boss defeated” widget, which always plays after the players defeat a major enemy. It had to blend smoothly with the music while giving a clear sense of victory and closure. We recorded short melodic phrases with Rachele Andrioli, one of Enotria’s main vocalists, and I used them to create a sound that harmonized with the score, landing on a perfect fifth that resolves to the root key.

The triccaballacca, a traditional Italian percussion used in the UI sound design of Enotria.

AS: A fun UI element to design using this approach was the area name widget, which appears on-screen to indicate when the player is entering a new game area. Since every macro-area of the map has a very distinct musical style, reflected in the boss fights, I wanted to use the same instruments to create sonic markers that would differentiate each region.

I used short instrumental motifs that immediately reflect the type of area entered, associating mandolin and colascione with Quinta, flutes, Calabrian, and Greek lyres with Falesia, viola da gamba with Litumnia, and harpsichord with Strale Velata.
 

Viola da Gamba recording session with Mateusz Kowalski.

Can you talk about the music?

AS: I wanted fights to feel like these wild, frenzied performances, where players instinctively sync their actions to the pulse of the music. So, one of my main references when approaching the soundtrack was the euphoric nature of Italian dances, especially the many different types of Tarantella, dances historically believed to have mystical or even thaumaturgical qualities.

One of the most inspiring parts of this work was collaborating with musicians who specialize in traditional instruments and playing styles. I was honestly surprised by how many unique instruments are part of the Italian folk tradition, from the Calabrian lyre to the battente guitar and the colascione (a long-necked lute popular around the 15th century).

Singing was always going to be central to Enotria‘s music, and to find the right sound for the game, I worked closely with Rachele to bring in the melismatic styles of Southern Italy, and with Alina Lesnik, who added this beautiful baroque tone to the more intimate moments.

A recording session with mandoloncello, mandola, mandolin and oud.

A big help during the early stages came from Orchestral Tools. Their support and the flexibility of their libraries allowed me to quickly sketch, experiment, and produce ideas that were rooted in the traditional palette I was working with. Their collections became a key part of my workflow.

I wanted to show just how many musical traditions Italy actually contains, because it’s not one unified sound

From the beginning, I also knew I wanted to show just how many musical traditions Italy actually contains, because it’s not one unified sound, it’s this mix of styles that sometimes clash in really interesting ways. So I didn’t just give each area its own musical identity, I did the same for the enemies that players fight.

In Quinta, most of the instruments and traditional tunes come from central and southern Italy, while in Falesia Magna, I introduced Hellenistic and Middle Eastern influences, using Greek lyres, ney flutes, and vocals in Griko language. When fighting Captain Spaventa (a Commedia dell’Arte mask depicting a Spanish conqueror), players hear a baroque guitar performing variations of Santiago de Murcia’s music, supported by the rhythm of a Batalla played on an organ, all clashing with southern-style voices in a real musical battle between invaders and defenders.

In Litumnia, the atmosphere shifts completely, inspired by Venice and northern Italy.

In Litumnia, the atmosphere shifts completely, inspired by Venice and northern Italy. I wanted to reflect this change by introducing instruments like the viola da gamba, vielle, and lirone. In this area, Moretta is the most recurring character, a noblewoman driven insane and trapped in a vicious killing cycle. Since her traditional mask is actually of French origin, I leaned into that by composing variations on Marin Marais’s “Les Folies d’Espagne.” The whole theme of ‘folly’ just felt like the perfect fit for her character. Pantalone and Balanzone’s theme, instead, starts as a dance but then shifts into a classical Requiem.

Suka biłgorajska recording session with Aleksandra Niewiadomska.

All these contrasting styles needed something to connect them, so I built the soundtrack around a leitmotif structure, with everything branching out from a central theme. I started from the First Song, the melody that gave birth to the world, writing lyrics in medieval Italian inspired by “Fui eo, madre, in civitate”, the oldest known Italian poem. From that, I developed the gods’ theme, meant to reflect their divine nature. Pulcinella’s Last Song was then derived from the gods’ motif, and this melody helped me in composing the main character’s theme, a motif that embodies his free will and resistance to fate.

Arlecchino’s theme, instead, is Pulcinella’s “Last Song” inverted, a technique often found in 15th-century polyphonic vocal music. I thought it was a good way to show their connection while making them feel like complete opposites.

CC: By planning beforehand which music instruments we wanted to include in the sound design, we were able to plan and record material that ended up being really useful for the game’s audio identity. Aram composed a beautiful track for Captain Spaventa’s boss fight, which features a military choir section sung by Spaventa’s army. The same army patrols in several areas of Falesia and before reaching Spaventa’s arena the players will have to go through the army’s camp.

Tagelharpa recording session with A Tergo Lupi (Camilla M. Ferrari).

We had a lot of great material to work with from the choir sessions, recorded from different mic positions, which made it easier to bring the camp to life with the soldiers’ hymns echoing between the tents. I set up a system in Wwise that plays 3D-positioned chants when you’re far away, with custom attenuation and reverb settings. As you get closer, it smoothly blends into a stereo layer of a smaller choir section, with randomized multi-positional emitters of isolated voices, scattered around to make the space feel more alive.

Once again, Phase Plant was my Swiss-army knife to create the cave’s winds as a chaos of voices.

Litho’s cave needed a strong element to match the multitude of voices you hear when speaking to it. Once again, Phase Plant was my Swiss-army knife to create the cave’s winds as a chaos of voices. Litho’s cave needed something powerful to match the flood of voices players hear when interacting with it. Also, I used it to transform walla recordings into chaotic wind textures made entirely of voices, playing with an LFO modulating on phase, pitch, and convolution. For the tonal layer, we recorded a choir drone, which I processed the same way to create a playable MIDI instrument. This let me perform new phrases and harmonies, matching Litho’s alien presence.
 

Choir recording session with Four For Music.

How did you approach the mix of the game? What were some technical challenges?

CC: A fast-paced combat system like ours needed a careful organization of every audio element during production and asset creation. Frequency separation was perhaps the most important part, first by defining which sound categories would occupy which ranges, and then by carefully EQ-tuning individual assets. A good example of this was the design of Giangurgolo, since most of his attacks sit in the low-mid frequency range, I kept the snake vocalizations and foley in the high range, making it way easier to mix later.

We organized our Wwise bus system into main categories and sub-categories of sound effects, which streamlined the management of RTPCs and sidechains.

We organized our Wwise bus system into main categories and sub-categories of sound effects, which streamlined the management of RTPCs and sidechains. For specific needs, we added dedicated buses to handle special cases.

Built-in and custom-made parameters for the elevation cone and listener cone were especially useful in refining the spatial position of certain sounds, since the level design unfolds vertically. We also made good use of custom RTPCs to handle particularly complex or unique environments. RTPCs were fundamental to control in real time multiple filters to avoid buildups of frequencies.

Since our game’s spells, attacks, or weapons can be shared between multiple characters, including the player, we needed a modular approach for the audio events. That’s why we built a detailed switch system, which allowed us to fine-tune effects, filters, attenuation, and custom parameters in a way that made the final mix phase much more manageable.

AS: Once we had a solid structure in place for Enotria‘s mix, a lot of the work went into iterating through several premix sessions to make sure everything sat right. Since combat is so dynamic, we needed fine control over multiple overlapping elements, making sure that nothing was competing for the same space in the mix.

Since combat is so dynamic, we needed fine control over multiple overlapping elements

A big focus for us was getting the side-chain priorities right. Fast-paced fights, multiple attacks, spells, and impacts can trigger at once, so we used specific priority settings to make sure the most important sounds, like successful hits, parries, or enemy unraveling, stood out while secondary elements were side-chained dynamically.

For the final mix, we went case by case to fine-tune each RTPC, since the macro-level systems could only get us so far. Some elements still clashed, or got buried in certain moments, so we used custom RTPCs to create space, especially in boss fights, where the music was already sitting in a dense frequency range. In those moments, Wwise’s EQ and Compressor helped bring out specific elements that needed extra clarity or impact.

On top of that, Wwise’s Mastering Suite was essential in getting the final output right, helping the mix stay clean and balanced, even in the most intense encounters.

SPECIAL THANKS: Special thanks to Leonardo Mazzella and Daniele Oliviero from the audio and code team for all their help and support!

A big thanks to Aram Shahbazians and Camilla Coccia for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Enotria: The Last Song!

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