By Alex Pentaliotis

What is a world? It’s where a wide range of different elements exist, very often extremely distinct from each other, yet all belong together in that world.

One of my favourite examples of this in gaming is LucasArts’ classic Grim Fandango. The setting shifts from the corporate Department of Death travel agency, to demonic forests, to the Casablanca-inspired Rubacava; all extremely different settings which all belong in the Land of the Dead.

In terms of film and television, there are many masters of this such as David Lynch. However, one of my favourite executions of an expansive world is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. From the Shire to Mordor, J. R. R. Tolkien’s world, brought to the screen by Peter Jackson, is immersion at its best.

The other aspect to this which has always fascinated me is that a world does not need to span multiple locations to feel vast. It can exist within a single setting, as long as that setting contains contrast, depth, and identity. A prime example of this is Mad Max: Fury Road. The entire movie is set within a charred wasteland.

Exploring those different facets of the same world has led me to explore the concept more deeply: not only the role sound plays in world-building, but how a palette of sound from a world can be used in a wide range of other applications.

Taking The Wasteland Series as an example, the focus was on building a cohesive sonic identity rather than a single fixed perspective.

Each sound represents a different facet of the same world, whether it’s the intensity of pressure, the vastness of distant ambience, or the remnants of something mechanical left behind.

By designing these elements to feel connected, they can be combined and recontextualised, allowing that world to extend far beyond its original setting.