Revisiting the Ambient Sounds of Tomb Raider

Abstract

This essay is prompted by a reconsideration of sonic elements in certain computer games that more than two decades ago figured importantly in the author’s life and which recently have been re-visited. It deals in particular with certain of the ambient sounds that permeate Tomb Raider (1996) and Tomb Raider II (1997), contrasting them with the games’ various diegetic noises, describing at least some of these sounds in graphic as well as verbal detail, and speculating about the relationship these sounds might create between the gamer and the game. While avoiding definitive answers, the essay asks several questions: How is it that gamers who fancy themselves to be keen listeners can spend extended amounts of time with these sounds and not find these sounds to be boring? In the context of gameplay, are these sounds ever actually, and actively, attended to? Heard out of context, might these sounds be considered to be, in themselves, a form of music?