Mysterious Sound Effect

General Discussion
1

Hey there,

for years my brother and I have been wondering what this weird sound effect means. It almost sounds like an owl hooting/cooing.

He posted this clip on reddit if you want to hear it:
https://www.reddit.com/link/v9iplb/video/9eleksly9v491/player
The sound occurs when the in-game countdown hits 3:41. It’s really hard to hear so maybe turn the volume up.

Our current theory is that it involves Ana dying. In the match from the video an Ana died everytime we heard the sound BUT not vice versa. Not everytime an Ana died the sound was played. Maybe it got something to do with the owl skin? But you can hear the sound even from another perspective in game (even when not playing Ana).

Any help is greatly appreciated, this is driving us mad.

Edit: corrected the time stamp to 3:41.

2

All I hear at 3:42 is:

  1. Ana’s healing shots, when they land on ally, it rises in tone according to the remaining HP that’s left
  2. The moira behind to your left shooting their healing orb near you and it healing you, sounds a little distorted from the clip quality
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3

It actually happens at 3:41 just before/during Moira’s death sound and it sounds more like a cuckoo clock noise “coo coo” to me, but I do hear it. It also sounds close to the Ana and there’s a Bastion right next to her, so maybe it’s his bird or a voiceline? I def don’t play enough Bastion to know but it does sound very “Bastiony”.

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4

That sound is literally just the sound of the healing, nothing special as it actually occurs for all healers if you listen carefully, the faster the healing occurs the higher the pitch of the sound.

5

No there’s definitely a different sound unrelated to the healing.

6

This is what I think

From what I hear, it either came of the ana or moira dying (Since you are playing in a different language

or

It was the bastion (Not sure if his sounds are altered by language tho, or maybe the bastion sound combined with them dying made it sound weird

7

Yes, thanks so much for actually hearing it. Nobody we asked seemed to hear it so this makes us feel a little bit more sane.

Cuckoo clock is a better description for it, didnt find the right words.
But good theory, we will watch out if there is always a bastion around when the sound plays and report back here!

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8

Yeah it’s funny because once I heard it, I couldn’t stop hearing it. But it took me like 5 or 6 listens to actually hear it and now it’s easy to hear. It would be driving me crazy too so I feel your pain.

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9

Lol I hear it. Weird. Maybe it’s just part of the Moira death scream?

10

It def sounds like a Cuckoo Clock. For those who can’t hear it, go to the part of the clip right before the Moira dies to the Junk mine.

11

That’s the noise Bastion sometimes makes when he goes into sentry mode

12

After testing a bit more in custom games with different hero compositions, I can say it definetly only occurs when Ana dies. There does not need to be a Bastion around. It seems to be completely independent from what hero Ana gets killed by. The sound does not occur every time but is triggered randomly on Anas death in maybe one fifth of the cases.

I have still no idea why this sound exists or why it sounds like a cuckoo clock and not like a human/omnic noise similar to all the other hero death sounds.

Edit: now I switched the localisation to English (was German before) and the sound seems to be gone. Looks like it’s a sound bug with the Ana death sound effect of the German version of Overwatch!