Talent Tree is a blog series about the talented people behind everything we create. Here, Felipe, a sound designer, takes us through his creative process and shares some of his own behind-the-scenes videos on Overwatch 2.
Tell us a little bit about your path at Blizzard. Did you always want to work in games?
Yes! I always knew I wanted to work in games, ever since I played Diablo 2—my first Blizzard game—followed by World of Warcraft. With Blizzard in mind, I decided to pursue character animation at art school, where I met some audio students who taught me how to make music. I fell in love with that whole world. For a few years, I pursued music full-time as a DJ, but it’s a brutal career, and the dream of working at Blizzard never went away. One day, I happened to check the Blizzard Careers site and saw an opening in localization QA. I’m fluent in Portuguese, so I got the job. On campus, I met others who had moved from QA into game development (including one of my now-teammates in sound design), so I took game audio classes online to try to bridge the gap in my education and build my demo reel, getting myself ready for any opportunities that might come up. A role opened on Heroes of the Storm and it was off to the races from there, ultimately leading me to Overwatch 2.
Since working on Overwatch 2, you’ve developed a bit of a following on YouTube, posting videos of your creative process. What inspired you to start that?
I think very few people outside of sound design understand the sounds they’re hearing in games. If you hear a character land a punch, for example, you’re likely hearing a kick drum or cracking vegetables. Most of our sounds were all created by something else. The videos kind of happened by accident when I created one back in 2023 to show the team my process on the character Illari. After seeing their response, I asked permission to tell that story and share the nuance and context that goes into sound design on YouTube. So far, the reactions online have been positive and endearing—it’s been a great experience.
Can you explain a little bit about the role of a sound designer and how your role functions in the big picture of game development?
At Blizzard, sound designers are as much a part of game development as anyone else. On Overwatch, we’re in the conversations early on, shoulder to shoulder with animators, VFX artists, engineers, and designers. We’re building things together. That’s particularly the case with my role now, where I’m focused on sound design for Heroes. It’s a lot of collaboration, ideating, and play testing. I’m sharing what I’m doing with the team every step of the way and getting feedback from my peers.
Sound design in general lives in this kind of mysterious realm where it’s less visible than other disciplines. I go into the Foley room to record, then I process those recordings into something totally new and different. There’s kind of a “hidden magic” that keeps it interesting. We really focus on making each character sound unique—we record things and process them ourselves to ensure it doesn’t sound like anything else that’s out there. Recording “new source,” as we call it, is one of the most fun parts of the job.
How do you approach sound design for a new Hero?
We try to attack it from all angles. We start by asking what role this character fills gameplay-wise, where they fit in the roster, and what fantasy we’re trying to achieve. With Freja, for example, she’s really quick and fast on her feet, so her mechanics dictate that she should sound light and airy. We’ll generate a list of questions for the Hero and dive into the fantasy behind them: What is Freja’s lore? How would we describe her at her core? The answers really drive who the character becomes and helps to ensure the sound design is aligned from the start.
I’ll also typically do some experimenting with different objects in the Foley room. Let’s look at Illari, the Peruvian warrior with sunlight powers that beam out of her ancient gun. When you’re tasked with a sound project like that, there are thousands of potential directions you could go. Perhaps an obvious one would be to explore metal sounds. But I knew I wanted something really original for her sunlight magic sounds, so I ultimately went with a Peruvian flute to stay in line with her character’s origin. I recorded a bunch of things like swinging the flute through the air, blowing into it, and more. None of those flute sounds were pulled from a sound library, so she doesn’t sound like any other character that’s out there in any other media.
What inspires your creative process? Where do you begin when testing new materials?
The longer you work as a sound designer, the more you get a sense for what works. You learn tricks of the trade, like which metals don’t ring out that much versus which ones do. You learn that if you tie an object to a rope and spin it around, the less aerodynamic it is, the more it’s going to cut through the air in an interesting way and make a more interesting sound.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is that a lot of sound design is experimentation—looking at objects in an unconventional way. For example, I went to a flea market and bought a bunch of rusty, secondhand tools, some of which I didn’t even know what they were. I brought them into the Foley room, played around with them, and sure enough, I got some new sounds to use out of them.
How can an aspiring sound designer get started in the field? What are some qualities needed to be successful in sound design?
If you want to get started in sound design, you don’t need fancy microphones or a suite of expensive plug-ins at the outset—it’s really accessible in that you can get going with just a computer, the right software, and a device to record with. You can grab your phone and record anything you have available and get a cool result. I’m always grabbing tools and objects from home even now.
To be successful in the field, you must be curious, creative, and willing to play around with the mundane. Think outside the box. Sound design also takes a lot of patience and attention to detail. You have to approach a character from both a first-person and third-person perspective, from how your friends hear you to how your enemies hear you. A character like D.Va, with all her UI sounds, is going to sound very different to the player than to her teammates or enemies. Then when it comes to footsteps, you have to consider what materials they’ll be walking on: carpet, rock, gravel, grass, snow, sand. All of that needs to be captured and hooked up for each perspective, so patience is a big factor.
What are some lessons you’ve learned in your career that might be helpful for other aspiring sound designers to learn?
Try not to work in a bubble. It’s really easy to isolate and want to be self-sufficient, but our best work is done when we’re collaborating with others and asking for help. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a better result by forcing myself through a creative problem alone. When other people chime in, you get ideas you never would have thought of. Get a friend involved in your process—it’s so much better and you’ll be surprised how much fun people have recording with you.
Be sure to check out Felipe and the rest of the Overwatch 2 sound design team's work in Season 18 when it launches on August 26, 2025!