Oliver Thelwall Audio

Composer & Sound Designer

I am a sound designer and composer with over 5 years of games audio experience at Cathedral Studios, working across two Steam releases and a large-scale FPS in development.

I work across the full audio pipeline - from writing and recording music, field recording and sound design through to Wwise implementation, Unreal Engine integration and final mix.

Helping out at the booth at Gamescom

About

Music & sound

30+ original tracks written, recorded and produced across three games, from orchestral and synth scores to 1960s-style band music.
Sound design across vehicles, weapons, magic, creatures, NPCs, environments and UI.
Foley and field recording, combined with professional SFX libraries to create original assets.
Audio for trailers and cutscenes, including music, sound design, VO and final mixes.
VO recording, editing and direction.

Technical implementation

Wwise: switch containers, RTPCs, states, interactive and beat-synced music, 3D spatial audio, occlusion and obstruction.
Unreal Engine: Blueprint audio systems, MetaSounds and Level Sequences.
Multiplayer audio and replication across every game project.
Dynamic weather, time-of-day and ambience systems.
Audio profiling and optimisation for memory and CPU.

Background

Five years in games audio at Cathedral Studios.
20+ years as a songwriter, performing musician and producer.
11 years managing teams and operations before moving into games.

Recent Projects

Sound Designer, Audio Programmer and Composer for the following games:

Carry the Count

A co-op fantasy adventure game - Released 2026 - PC

Carry the Count is a co-op adventure for one to four players. You play the Igors, hauling your annoying vampire master's coffin across a medieval fantasy world to his lover Romilda, fighting barbarians and outsmarting Swampmen along the way.

I wrote, recorded and produced the full orchestral-style score and designed and implemented the sound effects in Wwise and Unreal Engine. The references I was given for this project were classic cartoon movies and RPGs from the 90s, so the score is whimsical and orchestral, with a comic streak and the feel of a grand adventure. The music shifts with each new biome as the action unfurls.

The coffin is the star, so it got its own vehicle-style audio system; each bump, scrape and knock responds to how it's being carried, while the poor Igors grunt and groan dynamically at the effort it takes to manoeuvre their buffoon of a master.

My favourite work on this title was the cutscenes, from the sound design and music, to the VO and the final mix. I also voiced four of the characters, I particularly enjoyed the croaky old Baba Yaga, and the always happy to get to work Plank!

Carry The Count - Audio Showreel

In-engine footage of gameplay showcasing SFX, implementation and original music.

A selection of music composed for Carry the Count.

Official Trailer for Carry the Count featuring the track 'Moving Out'.

HAM: The Game

A co-op factory management game - Released 2026 - PC

HAM is a chaotic co-op factory management game where you and your friends race to fill endless orders while everything falls apart around you.

I led the audio on a small dev team, handling sound design and implementation in Wwise and Unreal Engine alongside producing the music for the game. The references I was given for this title were Wallace and Gromit and classic elevator music, so the score is light and jaunty with an edge of panic underneath.

The sound design is deliberately over the top: alarms, warnings, arriving trucks, exploding machines. The challenge was balance. With so much going off at once, every sound needed a clear purpose, overwhelming without becoming annoying.

I loved this game's goofiness, which gave me the freedom to go big and silly with the sound.

The Official Ham Gameplay trailer featuring the track 'Let's Make Some Ham!'

Ham The Game Audio Showreel

In-engine footage of gameplay showcasing SFX, implementation and original music

A small selection of music composed for HAM: the Game

The Bornless

An action horror FPS - currently in production

The Bornless is an horror FPS set on a Lovecraftian island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, where teams of players face off against each other, summon demons, race to collect items and then escape to their safehouse to regroup.

I was one of two audio designers on a 30-person dev team, sharing the sound design and music, with the goal of AAA sound on an indie budget. For the sound design, we looked to souls-like games for the base tone that we were trying to achieve: otherworldly and tainted with dark magic, rather than the constant in-your-face noise of modern shooters, while staying true to the period with the weapon fire and in world ambiences.

Some of my favourite work on this project has been the audio systems themselves; trucks, NPC and enemy audio, dynamic weather, time-of-day and location ambiences.

The score references I was given for this title were movies like Hereditary, Annihilation and the Lighthouse: big dramatic synths against solo, raspy acoustic instruments. I also wrote an album's worth of period band music for the jukebox featured in the abandoned biker bar.

The official Next Fest gameplay trailer for The Bornless

The Bornless - Safehouse Showcase

A ambience showcase reel originally made for a dev-vlog of the safehouse; a chilled area of the game where players can take time away from the action on Farmouth Island. SFX on this title was co-created with my colleague Romain Moularat.

A small selection of music I composed for the Bornless.

Music written for a fictional biker bar jukebox within the game.

Music for unannounced projects

Dreaming of Waves was written for an early prototype for a sci-fi roguelike shooter, built to pitch to investors.

For this pitch I used Unreal Engine's own tools rather than Wwise, building footstep and weapons systems in MetaSounds.

Welcome to Vibetown is a nostalgia-drenched synth wave track produced for a game set in a cartoonish 1980s American suburb, where players build and battle homemade robots.