“Level 0 has no silence, only your feet. By the first hour you hate them, believe me.”
In Level 0 the sound you hear most is your own. Each step on carpet sounds like a dull thud, a body of noise and a soft rub, and no two in a row are the same. It is such a constant sound that you end up no longer hearing it, until it stops.
What it sounds like
A step has four components:
- A low thud, from 80 to 110 Hz, whose pitch drops the moment it touches the floor.
- A muffled noise body, at about 1,000 Hz.
- A rub, from 1 to 3 kHz, which carries very little weight on carpet, 2.5% of the energy.
- Depending on the material, a resonance, a click or the creak of a sole.
On carpet there are no tones and no high sound above 4 kHz. Metal is the only surface that resonates, between 400 and 900 Hz, and you notice it right away when going from an office into a duct.
Footwear changes the timbre
| Footwear | What it sounds like |
|---|---|
| Boots | lower, longer thud, with the creak of a sole, 15% louder |
| Sneakers | the base sound |
| Barefoot | almost only rub and a dull thud, softer and slightly higher |
Rhythm and variation
Each step is a different variant from the one before, with small differences in pitch and volume. Running multiplies the volume by 1.3 and shortens the sound, and crouching halves it. When you land from a fall the sound is longer and louder, but only if you fall faster than 4 meters per second. In Level 2 a step sounds like wet carpet.
The same step sounds the same in any game, and wanderers who team up say they can recognize a companion’s stride without seeing them.
How to survive
- Crouch to cross a zone you don’t know, because the sound is cut in half.
- Take your boots off if you need to get past without making noise. Barefoot you are barely heard, but you leave the most recognizable footprint.
- Don’t run on carpet if something is nearby. Every stride carries farther than you think.
- When the sound of your feet changes suddenly, from carpet to metal for example, listen for a moment before going on.
What people say
- In certain zones someone walks in time with you, half a step behind. It is what the footstep echo of Level 0.1 describes.
- A woman says the hum of the fluorescents cuts out for an instant when you stop.