Masayoshi Soken has earned himself a reputation as one of the most iconic composers in videogames. Over more than a decade working with FF14, his name has become almost as synonymous with the series as the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, and that success led him to take on the role as lead composer for Final Fantasy 16. When I asked him whether he’d repeat the challenge of handling two games at the same time in the future, however, he was adamant that he’d “never want to do anything like that again.”
I had the pleasure to speak with Soken ahead of the recent Distant Worlds concerts in London, which featured a range of music from the Final Fantasy series with particular focus on FF14 and 16. After discussing which entry from the beloved RPG series he’d like to see more of in Final Fantasy 14, I turned the conversation to the challenges of working on the MMO’s Dawntrail expansion alongside the sixteenth mainline entry.
Soken tells me that he found the composition work for the MMORPG, and also the overall process, completely different from that of FF16. “I can’t really come up with a specific example, mainly because of the sheer amount of work that was needed, but in terms of the spirit that went into the creation of 14 and 16, I would say that it was very different. Actually, I expected it to not be that different,” he muses, “but I found that it was, indeed, very different. If I were to put it into very few words I would say that 14 has variety and 16 requires stories.”
The nature of the projects meant that Soken and his team ended up needing to work on both games simultaneously. “I would be very honest in saying that I never want to do anything like that again,” he says. “Every day was a really horrible hell – really something beyond your imagination of hell. But there is a reason why I was able to achieve it.
“In the past I worked on A Realm Reborn while working on [Final Fantasy 14] 1.0,” Soken recalls. At the time, Square Enix kept the original iteration of the MMO running while it was quietly developing its replacement – turning a failed first attempt into one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed multiplayer games ever. “I had the experience of working on two massive games [at once], so I just didn’t give up this time either.”
Despite succeeding this time as he did back then, Soken notes that “The amount of work that [he] 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.”
With that in mind, would Soken take on a potential Final Fantasy 17 if he was still busy with 14? “If they said, ‘Would you do it simultaneously?’ I would just say no, I don’t want to.” After a moment’s pause, he continues: “If they asked me, ‘Is it that you don’t want to do it?’ I would say no. It’s a difficult, difficult question. If I had two bodies, I would do both.”
With Dawntrail just the start of a potential ten-year plan for Final Fantasy 14, and Soken both beloved by players and seemingly still very much enamored with the project himself, it seems unlikely that he’d be stepping away from the MMO any time soon. Perhaps Square Enix will have to find themselves another option to lead the next mainline game in the series, in that case, although only time will tell.
For plenty more memorable experiences, take a look through the best story games in 2025, or look ahead to see what’s still to come among the biggest and best upcoming PC games.
You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.
