Liner Notes
Sound Director
Masayoshi Soken
Hello, Warriors of Light!
I'm Soken -- Sound Director at Square Enix and provider of music, sound effects, audio engineering, and live broadcast hype for Final Fantasy XIV.
It's the day after the launch of early access for Endwalker, and I've been working through the night with a team of programmers to sort and resolve a slew of reported sound issues. With this expansion, the sound team faced a healthy share of new challenges -- from sound engine improvements to the implementation of Immerse (middleware that allows players to enjoy surround sound in their existing stereo sound setup) -- and with the number of Warriors of light that have amassed on the shores of Eorzea, we had to be extra thorough in debugging these sound updates by testing across numerous environments. We racked our brains day in and day out trying to come up with solutions to the many issues that occur in Windows's sound environment -- an array as infinite as the starts in the sky. As a developer, it's been a hellish experience, but a previous learning opportunity all the same.
All of which begs the question: why on earth is today the deadline for these liner notes?!
Anyhow, can you believe it's already been eight and a half years since FFXIV was reborn -- and eleven and a half years since the original release? I'm coming up on my 24th year working int he games industry, which means I've devoted nearly half of my career to working on this game. Back when I was a snot-nosed kid, never in a million years did I think I'd grow up like this. The Famicon was in its heyday, and the lifespan of a game was about three months...but now, I've somehow worked on a single game for eleven and a half years! What!?
Midlife crises aside, in this expansion we find the truth at the heart of our tale of Hydaelyn, making it a finale of sorts -- it even has "End" in the name! As part of the team trying to make that finale satisfying, I can tell you firsthand that the pressure was no joke. "Hey, just create the perfect culmination of this ten-year journey real quick," right? Whatever constraints I've had, I still put my all into every release thus far -- so how can I sum that all up? How much should I pour into Endwalker, so that its' a worthy climax to this saga? My heart's been racing every day from the scale of this undertaking...
Not that FFXIV is going anywhere -- we aren't finished with you yet! This is the end to a massive tale, though, and the culmination of a musical journey that reaches all the way back to 1.0 and has continued through A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers. I crammed as much from those titles as I could into the soundtrack for Endwalker, so I hope it moves you Warriors of Light to reflect on the journeys you've made, as well as those to come. (I'd really like to delve into how we used sound design to capture the story beats, but to save you from spoilers I'll leave it at that, haha.)
When the subject of sound in games comes up, people tend to think of music, but there's so much more to it than that. I hate to sound like a broken record, but aside from music, there are moving 360-degree sound effects linked to polyphonic objects producing 200 or even 300 sounds at the same time, not to mention ambient sounds that have been composed in surround sound to provide a deeper sense of immersion. Then there's voices, for which we prepare scripts, call in voice actors, and record scenes countless times until we get it just right, and our sound engine that provides extremely versatile sound processing and playback without burdensome rendering.
Now, if you came out of my ramblings thinking, "They're sure doing some complex and mysterious things behind the scenes in FFXIV," then you're right, and it's nice to be appreciated. But the real point here is that everything I do, I do because I want as many of you as possible to enjoy your time int eh game and think, "Wow, that's cool!"
Everyone has to start somewhere, so if this soundtrack is what inspires you to take note of the myriad aspects of sound design, I couldn't be happier. I'll continue to do my best to create sound that sparks that interest!
It goes without saying that the tech used to create games is constantly advancing at breakneck speed, which is why the games industry is so exciting, and why it's so hard to leave. Help, I'm in too deep! Anyway, if seeing me go on and on about sound production has somehow garnered your interest in this line of work, then by all means, please contact Square Enix's Sound Division so we can work together! (Let's march through the gates of hell, baby! Haha!)
FINAL FANTASY XIV Sound Director Masayoshi Soken