Composer Masayoshi Soken reveals that creating the music for Final Fantasy XVI was no easy feat. Soken was given the task of creating a new Prelude theme with a darker feel than usual. The Prelude melody is recognisable in almost every Final Fantasy game ever created, and this time fans will be excited to hear a major shift in its key. For an approximately 200-plus track score, Soken did an excellent job maintaining the tone of the game’s story and its characters. FFXVI has received an M rating, a first in the mainline numbered series, and this darker tonality resonates perfectly with its audience.
The Music of Final Fantasy XVI Part 1 – The Prelude
The Prelude has been around since the original game in 1987 where composer Nobuo Uematsu made the melody in just 10 minutes. It’s undergone many iterations, remixes and recompositions since, and often appears in other Final Fantasy games. Soken had to create unique themes while also incorporating elements from the previous versions of the game. With a new direction in mind, Soken made the difficult but necessary change to the Prelude and made it darker to suit the game’s tone better.
Naoki Yoshida, the game’s producer, wanted Soken to create a classical and grand feel to the score. Because the company has invested much effort in creating a heavy and stoic feel in the story, the music matches the darker theme. In an interview, Soken reveals that the heavy story weighs on the score’s mood, for this reason, the samples provided and even the Prelude’s major key had to be reworked into a minor key.
Creating a new Prelude theme was not easy at all. The theme’s recognisability was also a challenge because fans had high expectations. Soken said, “You have this very recognizable melody that Uematsu-san composed, but as you know, it’s in a major key. And because we were aiming for something that was darker, that major key didn’t really work. You have this wonderful major key melody that’s bright, like a crystal, but we need to make it dark, so the first thing we had to do is change that melody from a major key to a minor key.”
Final Fantasy XVI Composer Masayoshi Soken
According to Soken, he also incorporated memorable tracks from other Final Fantasy games, but the challenge was breaking them apart and reconstructing them into a more melancholic style. Soken refrained from giving previews of the new Prelude, but a fresh teaser of FFXVI is out, and the key shift is evident.
With the darker version of the Prelude, we are confident that the music of Final Fantasy XVI will perfectly fit the game’s dark atmosphere.
Visit Game Informer’s exclusive Final Fantasy XVI coverage hub by clicking on the banner below.