How To Do Footstep Sound Effects For Video Games - A Step-by-step Tutorial By Ross Tregenza:

Game audio footstep sound effects tutorial

Posted January 18, 2024 by Asbjoern Andersen in Sound design guides

Footstep sounds can be tricky to get right in games, but sound designer and composer Ross Tregenza (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Deathloop, Cyberpunk 2077) has compiled a great step-by-step, practical guide tutorial on how to make them sound right - from designing the footstep assets, to setting up your middleware or in-game system, creating variations, and essential details to focus on. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on some comfy (and great-sounding) slippers and get ready for a footstep deep-dive with Ross Tregenza:

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Video Game Sound Design Tutorial - Footsteps!

Looking for source footstep recordings? Here are some to get you started:

The independent sound community has gathered a vast number of footstep recordings that you can build from, featuring a huge number of surfaces and a large selection of footwear – here are some of the popular footstep sound libraries:

Foley Sound Effects Edward Foleyart Instrument + WAV Bundle Play Track 35600 sounds included $197

Save as Bundle! Edward Foleyart Instrument and both meta tagged WAV Libraries (The Foleyart Collection + AddOn: Extended Footsteps).

Edward brings real recorded and natural randomized Foley Artist footsteps to every audio production studio – and offers high end quality and parameters to adjust distance and environment based on Native Instruments Kontakt engine.
Edward Foleyart Instrument supports the free NI Kontakt 5 Player!

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Footsteps Sound Effects Edward Ultimate SUITE Play Track 72600 sounds included $399

Edward Ultimate SUITE is the Next Level of our live playable Foley Artist Instrument. It supports the free NI Kontakt 6 Player.

This means you don’t need to own a full version of Kontakt to run this instrument!

The Edward Ultimate SUITE includes the complete contents of both Edward Ultimate and Clothes & Props.

Foley Artist: Lara Dale
Foley Recordist: Josh Reinhardt

The Edward Ultimate SUITE demos:

Edward Ultimate:

Clothes & Props:

Key Features:

• 72.600 real Foley sounds in high quality @ 24Bit, 48 kHz
• 90 combinations of shoes and surfaces
• 30 setups of clothes and props
• Kontakt Player Compatible
• Full NKS support
• One-Window Mixing (Use the Mod Wheel to mix/add or switch any two patches)
• Pitch Wheel Performance (Use the Pitch Wheel to change key commands on the fly)
• EdV3rb IRs inside the instrument
• Lock-Mode (Select and lock the type of randomization)

Surface Types
Asphalt • Carpet1 • Carpet2 • Concrete • Creak1 • Creak2 • Diamond • Dirt • Grass • Grate • Gravel • Rectangle Wood • Creaky Wood • Parquet • Cut Wood • Swiss Dock • Boat Wood • Linoleum • Marble • Puddle • Snow • Tile • Metal • Rocks • Water • Deep Water

Footwear type
Sneaker • Boot • Dress • Heel • Flat

Props used
Rifle • Hand Gun • Army Gear • Backpack School • Backpack Leather • Heavy Chains • Dog tags • Duffle Bag • Paper Bags • Plastic Bags • Keys • Purse • Purse Cloth

Clothes Used
Heavy Coat • Coat Wool • Denim • Heavy Denim • Fringe Suade • Fringe • Leather Heavy • Leather Crunch • Leather Biker • Sequin • Shirt • Shirt Light • Shirt Heavy • Silk • Tutu • Wind Breaker

Performances
Extremely Slow Walk • Medium Slow Walk • Walk • Jog • Run • Stairs Slow • Stairs Fast • Stomp • Land • Scuff • Scrape 1 • Scrape 2 • Scrape 3

Recording Equipment:
Sennheiser MKH 416
Neumann KMR 81i

Existing Edward user?

• Send a message here with info about what version you currently have for a special upgrade price

“WINNER OF THE INDIE SOUND AWARDS 2022”

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Foley Sound Effects Footsteps Bundle Play Track 3800+ sounds included
Rated 5.00 out of 5
$36

The ‘Footsteps Bundle’ combines ‘Footsteps One‘ and ‘Footsteps Two‘ libraries together and brings you over 3800+ high quality footstep sounds on 19 unique surfaces to enrich the audio of your next project.

Surfaces included:

Dirt • Dry Sand • Dry Swamp • Forest Plain • Forest Plain II • Frozen Stairs • Grass • Grass Long • Grass Short • Gravel • Pine Needle Ground • Snow Deep • Snow Packed • Snow Scrape • Water Deep • Water Shallow • Wet Swamp • Wood Scrap • Wooden Stairs

You get the sounds in two formats: 96 KHz 24 bit and in 44.1 KHz 16 bit, for more convenient ways of utilizing the sounds in games and other media.

20 %

OFF

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Footsteps Sound Effects Ultimate Footsteps Play Track 1176-3056+ sounds included
Rated 5.00 out of 5
From: $160

Need footstep sound effects? Get 5 Shoes, 25+ surfaces, 15+ variations – created by Foley Supervisor Joshua Reinhardt and professional Foley walker Lara Dale.

Deep heavy metal, crunchy snow, old boat wood, crisp grass, gritty dirt, clean tile – this library has it all. Not only does this library contain walking but it's got pretty much every performance you can think of, from scuffs to jumps and lands and scrapes. With this library you can cut Foley for pretty much any film or game that comes your way.

Highlights:

• 17 different Performances – From slow walk to RUN, 5 scrapes, bodyfall/land, stomps and more
• Every file is labeled with a description of the shoe, surface and performance type.
• Every folder has a picture of the shoe and surface plus a description of the distance of the mic from the Foley walker.
• Combine wood creak sweeteners with Ultimate Interiors wood for scary creaky wood or add grit to a clean interior to give character.
• Same recording studio mics and preamps used in over 50 major motion pictures
• Same boots that were used for Sylvester Stallone in The Expendable
• Mix and match shoes, surfaces and sweeteners to make your own custom characters
• Can be used as a stereo or separated and mixed/matched as a mono depending which mic works best for your project

Specs:

Foot wear type:
Boots, Dress Shoes, Flats, Heels, Sneakers.

Performances:
Extremely Slow Walk, Medium Slow Walk, Walk, Jog, Run, Stairs Slow, Stairs Fast, Stomp, Land, Scuff, Scrape 1, Scrape 2, Scrape 3, Scrape 4, Scrape 5.

Surface Types:
Asphalt, Carpet 1, Carpet 2, Concrete, Hardwood, Hardwood house, Hardwood deep, Hardwood parquet, Hardwood boat wood, Hardwood Dock, Lino, Marble, Tile, Dirt, Grass, Metal grate, Diamond plate Metal, Metal Slab, Wood Creak 1 old, Wood Creak 2, Gravel, Rocks, SNOW!!, Puddle, Water shallow, Water Deep.

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Find more sounds in the Footsteps sound effects category

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THE WORLD’S EASIEST WAY TO GET INDEPENDENT SOUND EFFECTS:

A Sound Effect gives you easy access to an absolutely huge sound effects catalog from a myriad of independent sound creators, all covered by one license agreement - a few highlights:

Cinematic & Trailer Sound Effects CIRCUS Horror Strings Play Track 180 sounds included $7.80

Strident and Demonic

Expand the timbre of your horror violins and cellos with CIRCUS, a sinister sample pack featuring 180 WAV sounds of screeching or high-pitched string noises, perfect for horror music and dark sound design.

Creative Tension

This collection offers a curated selection of screeches, high-tension tremolo, heavy jeté strokes, dark demonic textures, finger patterns, chaotic string elements, clock loops and bow accents.

Haunting and Experimental

Create haunting atmospheres, perfect for horror, thriller or experimental soundtracks. Every element has been designed to unsettle and disturb, blurring the line between music and noise.

80 %

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Ends 1760911199

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Firearms Sound Effects Handguns & Pistols Play Track 75 sounds included $34.99
Stockpile your arsenal of HANDGUNS with this mini pack of cutting edge sounds of modern warfare, designed by our team of AAA-industry veterans and huge fans of games like Gears of War, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Killzone, Command & Conquer, Red Alert and many more.

From PISTOLS, HANDGUNS, and SILENCERS to GUNSHOTS, ZAPS, and BULLET RICOCHETS, quiet WEAPONS HANDLING, this mini pack of sounds will give you everything you need for any HANDGUN-wielding SOLDIERS or AGENTS!

KEY FEATURES:
- Huge variety of big and small weapons, mechanical industrial and modern clean sounds, different types and intensity variants
- Ready to use – requires no editing, labeling or splicing
- Categorized, organized and individually labeled files for maximum use efficiency
- All files are included in Hi-Rez WAV, SD WAV and HQ MP3 formats
GET THE MODERN WARFARE WEAPONS SOUND PACK NOW!
13 %

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Creature Sound Effects STOMPS – Creature Footsteps Play Track 8500+ sounds included
Rated 5.00 out of 5
From: $299

We’re incredibly excited to introduce the ‘STOMPS – Creature Footsteps’ sound effects library – these are footsteps like you’ve never heard them before!

STOMPS is a massive collection of more than 8,500 files to boost your creativity and help you add special footstep sounds to your new project.

The library is organized into 3 categories –
Source, Textures, Design:

In the Source category you’ll find the “best of” several hours worth of our recordings sessions, with more than 7,500 files (with lots of variations) organized into 83 folders. Every single sound is the product of a new recording.

You’ll find the sequences that include: 2 Legs WALKING, 2 Legs RUNNING, 4 Legs GALLOPING, 4 Legs TROTTING, and 4 Legs WALKING.

We used all kinds of weird props to record original, versatile sounds with lot of character, different textures, and in very different frequency ranges.

These sounds form the DNA of your future footsteps. You’ll have lots of different sound colours to play with, ranging from very small and harsh sounds to very low and bold ones, and all the ranges in between.

In the Texture category, you’ll find more than 600 sounds with different textures to help you customize your footsteps. These textures are also a very valuable sonic material that will help you construct lots of varying sound design work.

Finally, we have the Design category. Here you’ll find more than 500 processed sounds created by veteran sound designer Michel Marchant, covering a wide range of characters like Robots, Snow Creatures, Distant Dinosaurs, Rock Golems, Armies, Colossus and many, many more!

Update: Glued version also included

STOMPS now also features a special GLUED version, with the exact same content but with variation files edited together to reduce the number of single files in the collection, and making search through all sounds easier.

With “STOMPS, Creature Footsteps,” you’ll have anything you’ll need to create everything from small creature footsteps to big, out-of-this-world ones.

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Explore the full, unique collection here

Latest sound effects libraries:

Destruction & Impact Sounds Woodpile Chaos Play Track 82 sounds included $10

Woodpile Chaos is a gritty collection of 82 wooden hits, creaks, and scrapes — a wild mix of organic textures born from raw timber and controlled destruction.

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Animal Sound Effects Collections Dark Environment Sounds and Loops Play Track 120 sounds included, 63 mins total $29.99

This is big set of scary sound effects, that will make your game, or any other project performance much more impressive!

Dark, evil ambient loops, ambient noises, scary sounds, heavy rumbles, moans, metal squeaks, scratches, cracks, debris sounds, sub bass sound FX, background white noises, thunder strikes, electric sounds, engine loops, electric sparks and many, many more!…

40 %

OFF

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Car Sound Effects Ford Puma 1997 sports car Play Track 206 sounds included, 48 mins total $65

All files are recorded 32bit, 192 kHz, with RØDE NTG1, Line Audio Omni1 and FEL Clippy XLR EM272 microphones, Sound Devices MixPre-6 II recorder. Library contains wav files of driving, interior and exterior foley, mechanical and electrical sounds. It is only available in UCS.

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Ambisonic Sound Effects Red Deer Play Track 13+ sounds included $80

A small collection of High quality, close up red deer recordings.

Red Deer Roars and Moans and other vocalisations from different habitats. (mountainous areas and forest)

Recorded over the years during the rutting season, varying distances but mostly up close and face to face with this loud and scary mammal.

20 %

OFF

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Game Audio Packs - Game Sound Effects Libraries Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle Play Track 1054 sounds included, 9 mins total $60
Take full control of your interface sound design with the Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle — a massive collection of 1,054 professional-grade UI sound effects across seven expertly crafted libraries by RawAmbience.

From crisp button clicks and smooth menu transitions to RPG-style selects, denies, and toggles, this all-in-one bundle gives you everything needed to design intuitive and immersive UI audio for games, apps, web, or interactive media.

Packs included:
Click and Select UI RPG SFX
Click And Select UI RPG SFX 2
Click Menu Sound Effects
Click Menu Sound Effects 2
Click Sound Effects
Essential Menu Click Sounds
Essential Menu Select Sounds

Your complete UI sound design toolkit.

The Ultimate UI Click & Select SFX Bundle delivers a polished collection of responsive interface sounds, including:
- Click & Select UI RPG SFX 1 & 2 – Over 456 sounds tailored for RPG and interactive UI: selects, hovers, alerts, cancels, access-denied, and more.
- Click Menu Sound Effects 1 & 2 – 281 high-quality menu interaction sounds for toggles, clicks, opens, closes, and confirmations.
- Click Sound Effects – 110 versatile UI clicks designed for modern app and game interfaces.
- Essential Menu Click Sounds – 107 precise and minimal click sounds, ideal for clean, modern UIs.
- Essential Menu Select Sounds – 100 select-focused sound effects, delivering clean, modern UI feedback for toggles, confirms, menu navigation, and precise user selections.
Perfect For:
- Game menus and HUDs (RPGs, mobile, indie, AAA)
- Web and app UI feedback
- Interactive experiences (VR, AR, touchscreen)
- UI prototyping and UX testing
- Accessibility-focused sound design
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