{"id":46956,"date":"2025-04-11T15:04:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T06:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=46956"},"modified":"2025-04-11T15:04:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T06:04:39","slug":"final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the sound director and lead composer for Final Fantasy XIV and the lead composer for Final Fantasy XVI, Masayoshi Soken says that his experiences in composing music for an MMORPG and single-player action RPG are quite different. Considering that Final Fantasy XIV is a live-service title and Final Fantasy XVI is a contained experience (save for DLC), Soken gave the former\u2019s score more variety while giving the latter more story-oriented tracks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with PCGamesN<\/a>, Soken says that his experience working simultaneously on the original 2010 version of Final Fantasy XIV and A Realm Reborn made him think he could handle composing music for Final Fantasy XIV and XVI in a similar way. The differences in the titles made things difficult, however, and Soken found himself dreading the amount of work he had to do each day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would be very honest in saying that I never want to do anything like that again,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery day was a really horrible hell \u2013 really something beyond your imagination of hell. But there is a reason why I was able to achieve it.<\/em> I had the experience of working on two massive games [at once], so I just didn\u2019t give up this time either.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soken attributes his increased workload to technological advancements. Considering Final Fantasy XIV and A Realm Reborn first launched on the PlayStation 3, Soken says the amount of work he did in 2013 is much less compared to his contributions to Final Fantasy XIV and XVI, both of which were released on modern consoles and PCs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe amount of work that I had to do was completely different. You can imagine before it was on PS3, but now we are on PS5, so all the things I had to make were just completely different in size.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite successfully releasing new tracks for Final Fantasy XIV and an original soundtrack consisting of over 300 songs for Final Fantasy XVI<\/a>, Soken says he wouldn\u2019t want to work on a Final Fantasy XVII project given he is still busy with Final Fantasy XIV. Considering the gap between Final Fantasy XV and XVI was seven years, Soken could still have enough time to change his mind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":46962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36,17],"class_list":["post-46956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-final-fantasy","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinal Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-11T06:04:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-11T06:04:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1343\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carlos "Zoto" Zotomayor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carlos "Zoto" Zotomayor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2025-04-11T06:04:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-04-11T06:04:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1343,"height":750,"url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Carlos \"Zoto\" Zotomayor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Carlos \"Zoto\" Zotomayor","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/"},"author":{"name":"Carlos \"Zoto\" Zotomayor","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/2812ca8facd5f161edfbc531cf81eb31"},"headline":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0","datePublished":"2025-04-11T06:04:36+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-11T06:04:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/"},"wordCount":396,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg","keywords":["Final Fantasy","News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/","name":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg","datePublished":"2025-04-11T06:04:36+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-11T06:04:39+00:00","description":"Final Fantasy series composer Masayoshi Soken talks about the hellish process of creating FF14 and FF16 music at the same time.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250411-46956-002.jpg","width":1343,"height":750,"caption":"Final Fantasy 16"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-14-and-16-composer-says-making-music-for-an-mmorpg-and-single-player-game-was-a-lot-more-different-than-he-thought-doing-it-simultaneously-was-hell\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u30db\u30fc\u30e0","item":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Final Fantasy 14 and 16 composer says making music for an MMORPG and single-player game was a lot more different than he thought. Doing it simultaneously was \u201chell\u201d\u00a0"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","name":"AUTOMATON WEST","description":"AUTOMATON is a website that covers the Japanese gaming world. We bring you the news on video games from Osaka and Tokyo.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization","name":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","width":374,"height":190,"caption":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/AUTOMATON_ENG","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCabvYnvuUUbbGUrxkaFRgSA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/2812ca8facd5f161edfbc531cf81eb31","name":"Carlos \"Zoto\" Zotomayor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/display-pic-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/display-pic-100x100.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/display-pic-100x100.jpg","caption":"Carlos \"Zoto\" Zotomayor"},"description":"Automaton West writer. Zoto has been playing video games for 30+ years now but has only recently come to grips with PC gaming. When he isn't playing video games, he watches romance anime and gets mad when his best girl never wins.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/carlos-zotomayor\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46963,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46956\/revisions\/46963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}