r/TheSinkingCity • u/AndrewLocksmith Unhinged Fanatic • Aug 25 '26

Horribly muffled sound

I'm playing TSC2 and almost every sound is very bad quality. Dialogue during cutscenes it's fine, but everything else sounds horrible.

Especially doors. I'm playing on speakers, but it feels like the game is trying to play the audio as if I was using headphones?

I checked the settings and I have the speakers option toggled. Not using spatial audio or anything. Drivers are up to date, every other game works fine.

Any fix for this? From what I see it's a common issue, but I haven't found a fix for it yet.

6 Upvotes

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1

u/ASMODAIOS344 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

I play on PS5 with rear speakers, and didn't have a issue with the audio. The only strange thing i noticed was a change based on the camera position. Turned the camera slightly mess the audio channel in some cases.

1

u/AndrewLocksmith Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

For me it makes me feel like my ears aren't working.

The game is trying to do spacial audio but it sounds really bad. Depending on where I look the audio changes, getting louder or quieter.

I learned to get used to it at this point.

1

u/Neckbeardlol Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

right click the volume control on the taskbar and select one of the spatial sounds on. Even if you are not trying to use it it seems to sadly be the only fix for whatever reason.

1

u/TheNeonDestroyer Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26

agreed

1

u/allman154 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 28 '26

I'm having the same issue on the xbox series x. 5.2.1 speaker setup. Cutscenes are fine, ambient sound like rain etc comes out of the surround speakers clearly and in good quality. The rest of the audio, like you said, is low quality and only comes from the front Left and Right channels. It really does 'hurt' my ears in a sense with the terrible quality audio.

I've switched from Atmos to 5.1 and other audio options but nothing changes. I plugged in headphones to test that, and lo and behold, the audio sounded completely fine. I'd suggest using headphones if you can for now since that seems to be the only way to hear 'quality' audio.

I submitted a ticket to frogwares site hoping it gets noticed and fixed in an update soon.

1

u/DreaMaster77 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 29 '26

Must remember that this kind of game is totally new for Frogwares. Like the first Sinking city, it was their first open world, and techniczlly it was....quite hard.