Elite Dangerous has some exceptional sound design work. There's nothing singularly amazing about any one effect, but everything is just done so well it makes it feel real. So many times when I'm playing games I can hear the bits and pieces of effects and know where they comes from. Like 'that impact is from SI' or that explosion is from 'Hollywood Edge' or that synth sound is from Omnisphere. But nothing in Elite Dangerous sounds stock or is recognizable. There's a ton of creative digital effects and well recorded foley and it all feels right and blends in seamlessly, truly exceptional work.

Going to the way back when, I've always thought System Shock 2 had some fantastic sound design especially considering the age of the game. Especially of note is the Shodan voice which even with all my modern gizmos I would have a very difficult time re-creating. The amount of painstaking time it must have taken to do that in 1999 is just mindboggling. The multiple-voices, echo delay, mutilator, reverb, time compression/expansion, pitch-shifting, layers of effects, and everything else that went into making that voice is beyond impressive. Here's an example if you're not familiar with it.