Ask Sound Director Masayoshi Soken Your Questions

[Chawncien]

What was the process for incorporating music from Nier: Automata into the new alliance raid like? Did you work with Keiichi Okabe and/or Monaca to decide which tracks to use, and where in the story? Were all of the songs re-worked in some way for the game in the way that "Weight of the World" was?

[Chawncien]

A second question: Was the reuse of existing battle themes like "Phantoms on the Lake", "To the Fore", and "Torn from the Heavens" for the various mid-dungeon fights in Shadowbringers a choice done for a specific reason, whereas previous expansions introduced a new one along with a new final boss track? Was it a way to thematically represent the fact that much of 5.0's story is directly connected to older plotlines and characters?

[Noitems]

A second question: Was the reuse of existing battle themes like "Phantoms on the Lake", "To the Fore", and "Torn from the Heavens" for the various mid-dungeon fights in Shadowbringers a choice done for a specific reason, whereas previous expansions introduced a new one along with a new final boss track? Was it a way to thematically represent the fact that much of 5.0's story is directly connected to older plotlines and characters?

All of the themes have been reused since at least Wanderer's Palace HM back in 2.x. The only new thing was having To the Fore be the midboss theme for HW. They didn't make any new ones past the final boss themes for the expacs.

If you're thinking the theme that plays in Doma Castle's midbosses, that song was used during Wanderer's Palace HM midbosses and was also used in some FATES from back in 2.0. While Phantoms on the Lake has been kicking around since Ampador Keep HM at least. The Stormblood ones just cycle through each of them the very same as Shadowbringers does.

Torn from the Heavens was the only one more recently reused (not in those rotations) and that being for Mt. Gulg was most likely a nice tongue in cheek reference to Mt. Gulg being a paradise (Heaven) and the group trying to stop Vauthry(an angel).

[Kulisiak]

Fenrir mount is using generic ride BGM - given the difficulty of obtaining this mount would it be considered to give him any dedicated music?

[Kaiserdrache]

Would it be possibke to umplement for FF14 similar to FF15's car radio the feature to just be ablecto choose any of the games music that we habe unlocked for us, to hear it on the walk?

Just like having a magic sound sphere with us FFX style that just makes ir possible to replay anything thats saved in it, in this case all FF14s unlocked songs for us, its so incredible stupid and pointless to be forced to have to go always tobour houses/ inns or guild house rooms, just to be able to hear the songs there that we want to hear, when that should be out of quality of live better be a feature, which should be usanle ANYWHERE in the game and not just only in housing instances.

Can be even made then exacly like in FF15, that the songs are divived and splitted up by the games, expansions ect, so that finding the song you want to hear can be found quicker

[Frood]

There has been much talk of how the next generation of consoles will change graphics, and some of how it will change graphics in FFXIV if and when support for the current generation is dropped from the game, my question for you is: What would be your priorities in improving the sound in the game should this happen? When you aren’t counting the bits so to speak!

[RicaRuin]

Would it be possible to bring some music/piano sheets for FF XIV OST to the West, similar to what had been avaiable in Japan?

[Noctisnine]

Are we ever gonna get 5.0 Gunbreaker sounds? The current ones are not as good as the 5.0 ones, not even close and if possible can you give us an explanation about this. Thank you.

[DrWho2010]

Would it be possibke to umplement for FF14 similar to FF15's car radio the feature to just be ablecto choose any of the games music that we habe unlocked for us, to hear it on the walk?

Just like having a magic sound sphere with us FFX style that just makes ir possible to replay anything thats saved in it, in this case all FF14s unlocked songs for us, its so incredible stupid and pointless to be forced to have to go always tobour houses/ inns or guild house rooms, just to be able to hear the songs there that we want to hear, when that should be out of quality of live better be a feature, which should be usanle ANYWHERE in the game and not just only in housing instances.

Can be even made then exacly like in FF15, that the songs are divived and splitted up by the games, expansions ect, so that finding the song you want to hear can be found quicker

there are technical reasons why this is not possible. all song info would need to be loaded along with your character into every zone that you travel to. we already have a ton of info ported along with our character as it is. with everyone switching music all the time it would most likely crash the server.

as well they would prefer you enjoy the music of the zone/game itself too.

[DrWho2010]

Would it be possible to bring some music/piano sheets for FF XIV OST, similar to what had been avaiable in Japan?

i would like to add to this too - there is some sheet music made available for XIV but it's limited to the Before Meteor/ARR stuff. Even the standalone XIV Piano Collections CD did not have a sheet music book released along side it (as is the case with all the other "Piano Collections" CD's from other entries in the Final Fantasy series.) I'm assuming it's because Soken's time is limited or there wasn't any business/license agreement in place to have a sheet music book made.