Hello! Today we're taking a look at one of Fortnite's greatest features - the option to visualise sound effects.
Chris: After a decade of mishearing people in the office, I've been wearing a hearing aid for most of the last year or so. It's been absolutely incredible. I have mild hearing loss, mostly high frequency sounds, which is why I have had trouble with human speech - I can't hear the consonants anymore. When I first put my hearing aid on at the hospital and then walked outside, I don't think I'd ever heard so much birdsong in my life - all the birds in the world came back to me.
Anyway, one of the things I'd noticed slipping before I got my hearing aid was fast-paced games like Fortnite. It's a game you play with your ears a lot of the time - I wasn't hearing chests or the sounds of people healing or approaching - all sorts of things. My daughter introduced me to the Fortnite Sound Ring - the official term, I think, is the visual sound effects setting - and it's been transformative. For someone with hearing issues like me it's a game-changer, but I've been talking to a number of people who don't have hearing issues and who also use it and also find it to be a brilliant thing - is that a fair way of putting it?