I’ve been playing the game for a hot minute. As intended, I make liberal use of voice cues, footsteps, et cetra to play the game. Lately, however, I’ve been having an issue…
I’m not hearing any sound cues from behind. If I do, they sound far off. Consistently, I’m not hearing voice lines for abilities/ultimates performed behind me. If a teammate is walking behind me and says a voice line, I can’t hear it. If I can, it sounds far off, like down a tunnel. I’ve only noticed this during the past week. It isn’t so bad that it’s unplayable, but it can be very disorienting. For instance, while scuffling in a small room with a Doomfist, if he starts charging rocket punch while behind me, I don’t hear it at all and think he’s still moving around or something. I’ve died to multiple Dead Eyes from behind where I never even heard the ultimate callout.
I’ve gone through past issues people have had with the audio space and sound cues not coming from the right direction. My drivers are up to date, it’s not an issue with Atmos or Windows spatial sound, and MOST sound cues come through just fine. I only have issues with ones from directly behind me.
Try these steps? Broken sound from behind - #15 by Caterpepi
If not, chime in here: Sound is muffed - #17 by JoshFuesting-1500
Looks like it might be the windows update issue people are mentioning.
I can turn on Atmos, but then the game audio sounds “wet” and quieter, like it’s transmitting through water. Don’t know if that would fix the issue, since I don’t like putting it on for the mentioned reasons. But good to know it’s supposed to fix with an upcoming update, and I’ll just deal until then (unless that doesn’t fix it).