Why can't I hear when I am getting shot in the back?

Question

In multiplayer, whenever I am getting shot from behind, I can barely hear the impacts of the bullets. There are the usual red indicators on the HUD that denote I'm getting shot in the back, but I find that not being able to hear the shots often throws me off and I end up dying a lot without even putting up a fight.

I thought perhaps it was an audio setting, in particular something with surround sound, but I couldn't find any settings related to that. There is a setting for adjusting the volume of bullet impacts, which I have maxed out, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

This seems uncharacteristic of other Halo games - I'm fairly certain getting shot in the back was definitely louder in previous games. Am I missing a setting or is this how the game is?

Answer 1

There are apparently known audio issues with the game, as documented on Halo Waypoint:

• Audio coming from behind or from the side is very quiet
• Audio feels like it comes from the wrong channels

I also found this Reddit Post that is for the same problem (and for the same exact model headphones I have). It has a potential workaround that didn't seem to work for me, but I will relist it here:

1. Open Device Manager.

2. Expand Sound, video and game controllers (not Audio inputs and outputs)

3. Right click your output device and click Update driver

4. Click Browse my computer for drivers

5. Click Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer

6. Select USB Audio Device and click Next. This will install the generic audio device drivers for this device instead.

7. Restart your computer (potentially optional, I had mixed results -- definitely best practice though)

8. Return to your Sound control panel by right-clicking the sound icon on your taskbar, clicking sound, and navigating to the Playback tab

9. Select your output device, and click Configure

10. You should now see a Stereo option. Select that, and click through Next to finish the configuration process.