Final Fantasy 16's music is by legendary composer Masayoshi Soken and it already rules

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Sick guitar riffs are probably coming.

Masayoshi Soken plays the Otamatone
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy 14 fans won't be surprised to hear that along with Naoki Yoshida producing Final Fantasy 16, the game's music will be composed by Masayoshi Soken. Keen listeners would have already been able to tell in the game's two trailers that the music resembles the stuff you hear all the time in the MMO, but now we know for sure via a PlayStation Blog post.

Last year, Sony put out the Awakening trailer and the moment the choir comes in with a play on the classic Final Fantasy theme, it screams Soken, and now even more so in retrospect. The composer has reached legendary status for blending traditional Final Fantasy music with other genres, including jazz and rock, for some of the game's greatest moments. And, best of all, he's played a lot of the music live in his band The Primals, and by himself, with an Omatatone.

So far, Final Fantasy 16's soundtrack doesn't veer far away from what you'd expect from the series, but I think it's a given that it'll jump genres within the final game—you truly can't restrain Soken.

Soken made a name for himself by transforming the perception of what Final Fantasy music could be as the game crawled back from its failed, original launch. He and Yoshida have talked a lot about their passion for making the music extremely evocative and surprising for long-time Final Fantasy fans over the years. It will be fascinating to see it in the context of a traditional action game with a potentially smaller scale story than the MMO.

Work on Final Fantasy 16 has seemingly gone on for quite a while alongside continuous Final Fantasy 14 development. In May 2021, Soken announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer and received treatment throughout 2020. The composer continued to work on music during chemotherapy.

You can hear his newest track in the new Final Fantasy 16 trailer from Sony's State of Play today. The game now has a summer 2023 release date, but it's still unclear when the PC version will launch.

Tyler Colp

Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.