I am terrible at audio. You are also probably terrible at audio. We both need pre-made sound effects for our games. A lot of sound effects. Ideally, a lot of free sound effects.
But it can be really hard to find free stuff online. And the hardest of all? Free sound effects for your game.
Top 5 Websites for Free Sound Effects
Mixkit
Mixkit features hundreds of completely free sound effects ready to be used in your Unity game - no attribution required. With two layers of categories (e.g. Human / Fart), Mixkit makes it SUPER easy to find what you are looking for. Pro tip: Avoid the “Game” section, go straight for “Human” and “Animal” sections.
https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/
Soundgator
Soundgator also contains pages upon pages of free sound effects. Awesome categories like Buttons and Transitions are perfectly tailored for Unity game dev. No attribution required, completely free.
Zapsplat
Zapsplat includes 100,000+ sound effects. Attribution is required under their standard license. You can pay to avoid attribution (but we are all poor here, right?). Juicy categories like Foley Sounds, Multimedia and UI, and Sport.
Game Audio GDC
Sonniss gives away hundreds of audio tracks each year to celebrate GDC. No attribution required, completely free to use in your project. Strap in to download hundreds of gigs of free sound effects for Unity.
https://sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc
PacDV
Thousands of free sound effects and audio clips for you to use in your Unity game. Attribution is required, so make sure you link back to the website in your credits if you use their audio.
https://www.pacdv.com/sounds/index.html
More Tips From the Community
Tip From u/WildCardMoo on the r/GameDev subreddit
Use Resonic (it’s free). I don’t bother categorizing my sound collection at all, as usually the files themselves are named properly.
In Resonic, if you press Alt while clicking on a folder, it lists all the music files in the folder in the listbox to the right (= it flattens the hierarchy). You can then search with Ctrl+F, and searches the full file name (including path). Even supports wildcards.
So if I need a growl, I just open Resonic, Alt-Click my sound folder, a few seconds later all sounds are fed to the listbox on the right, Ctrl+F, search for “growl” or "*low*growl*", and preview one sound after the other.
Resonic - A fast audio player and sample manager
Final tips for game audio
- Listen closely for artificial sounds - avoid them. They don’t pack the same punch as sounds from real life.
- Make sure you tag and group sounds as you download them in your hierarchy to keep things organized.
- Always provide attribution where required.
With these resources in hand, you will be able to improve the quality and quantity of your game’s audio and sound effects. Good, high quality sound effects are extremely important to increase interest when users are playing demos, watching game livestreams, or see your first game trailer.
You can check out this article on Reddit, along with helpful comments from the Community: Resource: How to access 100GB+ of high quality sound effects for free : gamedev (reddit.com)
About OccaSoftware - Game Assets for Unity
At OccaSoftware, we produce the best game assets for independent Unity game devs like you. We also produce free assets to help folks just starting out. Check them out on our publisher page: https://bit.ly/occasoftware-publisher
If you need any more gamedev or Unity support, just reach out to us on Twitter at @OccaSoftware
You can also check out our Youtube videos where we feature free assets and more, OccaSoftware Unity Game Assets on Youtube.
