Octopath Traveler 0 (Zero) is the latest mainline entry in Square Enix’s turn-based JRPG series, set to release on December 5. The new prequel was built into a full-length console game from the foundations of the mobile gacha game Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent (hereafter CotC). Its sound design is also somewhat unique compared to past Octopath entries, as series composer Yasunori Nishiki tells AUTOMATON.
In the previous installment of this interview, we talked about Nishiki’s charmingly named “fast food” approach to creating the game’s soundtrack. But another creative pillar behind Octopath Traveler 0’s music is the desire to recreate a feeling many JRPG fans haven’t felt in years: an old-school, angsty ending theme.
Nishiki reveals that he wrote 23 new tracks for Zero. While he initially wished he could have added even more for the fans, he’s confident that it’s a very strong selection. Among them is “Battle 0,” which the game’s director Kidera praises as “a battle theme on the level of Square Enix’s all-time greats.” Nishiki recalls that the piece “came out in one smooth burst,” adding that many of his best tracks tend to emerge that way, simple in structure and spontaneous.
But the centerpiece of the soundtrack is the vocal ending theme, an arranged version of the game’s main theme with heavy emotional messaging. Nishiki explains that throughout his work on the Octopath series, he hasn’t been trying to innovate just for the sake of novelty. Instead, he has tried to reinterpret the things he once loved in classic RPGs. For Octopath Traveler 0, that led him to a new challenge: bringing back the kind of ending song that hit so hard in older JRPGs that “the feeling doesn’t fade even after 10 or 20 years.”
He ties this directly to the philosophy behind Square Enix’s “HD-2D” games as a whole: the belief that the excitement people felt as children has been lost in many modern games, and the question of what happens when that sense of wonder is rebuilt using contemporary technology. He aims to do the same through the music he makes. “When a vocal song plays during the game’s finale, that feeling stays with you.”
Director Kidera cites Final Fantasy IX as a personal example of an ending song that defined his youth. He wanted Octopath Traveler 0’s finale to have that same kind of permanence, becoming a piece listeners can recall instantly, including its lyrics. Creating that required close collaboration between Nishiki, scenario writer Kakunoshin Futsusawa, and the production team.
Octopath Traveler 0’s producer Hiroto Suzuki emphasizes that the ending theme isn’t simply background music for the credits. Instead, the finale is specifically staged as an event, with the song’s lyrics displayed at carefully chosen moments. Because the text timing differs between Japanese and English, he says, syncing message delivery across languages was surprisingly challenging. The goal of this elaborate setup is to build a finale that gives players a reward and emotional payoff for the ~100 hours they invested in the game.
Octopath Traveler 0 releases on December 5 for PC (Steam/Windows), PS5/PS4, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and Xbox Series X❘S.
