The music for the video game Final Fantasy XV, developed and published by Square Enix as the fifteenth mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series, was composed primarily by Yoko Shimomura. Having previously worked on the Kingdom Hearts series, among various other titles, Final Fantasy XV was her first project for the series. Shimomura was brought on board the project in 2006, when it was a spin-off title called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and stayed in her role during the game's ten-year development cycle. Her music, based around themes of "friendship" and "filial bonds", incorporates multiple musical genres, such as orchestral, bossa nova, and American blues. Several tracks, including the main theme "Somnus", feature Latin lyrics written by the game's original director Tetsuya Nomura.
Final Fantasy XV was expanded into a multimedia project dubbed the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", for which other composers were hired; John R. Graham composed the music for the film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, with additional tunes from Shimomura. Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki of Righttrack wrote the music for the original net animation Brotherhood, while a team from the music studio Unique Note, who also worked on the base game, handled the mobile spin-off title Justice Monsters V. English indie rock band Florence and the Machine collaborated on three songs for the game, including a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me", which acted as one of the two official theme songs. Later contributors to the soundtrack, via downloadable content packs, were Keiichi Okabe, Naoshi Mizuta, Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, Tadayoshi Makino, and Taku Iwasaki.
Multiple albums have been released containing music from Final Fantasy XV and its spin-off media. Final Fantasy XV Original Soundtrack was released in December 2016 in multiple versions, including a four-disc CD release, a Blu-ray release with additional tracks, and a special edition. The standard four-disc release was published internationally in 2017 by Sony Classical Records. The score for Kingsglaive was released in September 2016 as a two-disc CD. Other releases include a digital album for Justice Monsters V in September, and limited digital albums for both Kingsglaive and Platinum Demo, a commercial demo acting as a prequel to Final Fantasy XV. The songs from Florence and the Machine were released in August as digital singles under the banner title "Songs from Final Fantasy XV". Reception of the albums was generally positive, with the main soundtrack album and Welch's tracks reaching high positions on music charts.
Creation and development Final Fantasy XV
The musical score for the action role-playing game Final Fantasy XV, originally a spin-off game called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, was composed primarily by Yoko Shimomura, whose previous work included Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana, and the Kingdom Hearts series. Final Fantasy XV was her first time composing for the Final Fantasy series, so she took a more tentative approach than her Kingdom Hearts projects. Shimomura was involved with the project when XV was still titled Versus XIII, being hired to compose the music in 2006 and staying on through its ten-year development cycle. In 2010, Shimomura was still forming a framework for the game's music, ensuring that the music fitted the game without it solidifying into an image that seemed wrong. Her work over the time prior to its rebranding as Final Fantasy XV was fairly sporadic. Shimomura worked on around 80% of the music: the rest were variations on her work and other themes created by others involved in the soundtrack. Other composers who worked on the game were Tetsuya Shibata, Yoshino Aoki, Yoshitaka Suzuki and Mitsuhiro Ohta; the latter two assisted with arrangements.
The first track created by Shimomura for the game was "Somnus", at that time the official theme song. "Somnus" was sung by Aundréa L. Hopkins; its lyrics were written by original director Tetsuya Nomura, which were translated and adapted into Latin by Taro Yamashita and Kazuhiro Komiya. According to Nomura, the title, which translates from Latin to "Sleep", reflects the subject matter and real-world themes. An instrumental version was also created for use in Final Fantasy XV, having been recorded at around the same time as the vocal version. When Versus XIII was rebranded as XV, "Somnus" was retained as the game's main theme, though it was replaced as the official theme song. Another long-standing track was "Omnis Lacrima". Translating to "All the Tears", it was featured in trailers for both Versus XIII and XV. The lyrics for both "Omnis Lacrima" and other Final Fantasy XV tracks using Latin vocals were written by Nomura and translated by Yamashita. Nomura credited the high use of Latin to his wish for a language that was no longer used on a daily basis and that people "won't be able to understand and yet appreciate", desiring a sense of general equality.
The game's music was designed to encompass themes of "friendship" and "filial bonds". Initially, due to its status as a spin-off, Shimomura did not feel the same amount of pressure to conform to the legacy of previous composers. By the time the game changed from Versus XIII to XV, she had a clear idea of what the score would be like and so felt minimal reservations despite the game now being part of the main series. At the same time, she felt the need to respect the work of earlier composers such as Nobuo Uematsu while staying true to the series' legacy of musical variety. Despite the ten year development, the musical concepts Shimomura worked from did not change much: she constantly aimed at creating a darker score than other Final Fantasy titles. Ultimately, only a third of Shimomura's completed work for Versus XIII was carried over into XV.
New elements were added when the game became Final Fantasy XV, but that was to suit the new elements being introduced rather than overwriting previous work. In contrast to her work with Nomura, Shimomura's tracks were quickly approved by Tabata, who only later requested changes or revisions. The score combined multiple music genres: apart from Shimomura's typical classical style, she also incorporated other styles such as Bossa nova and American Blues for certain locations. For his work on the game, Suzuki drew on his work on the Metal Gear series, though he watched gameplay videos rather than cutscenes for his work on XV. The music was performed and recorded in Boston by the Video Game Orchestra, a North American orchestra specializing in video game music whose first Final Fantasy project had been Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII in 2013. The orchestra's founder Shota Nakama helped with orchestration and arrangements for the soundtrack, in addition to composing the track "Bros on the Road". Nakama began working on the game in 2014, first working on tracks for promotional trailers.
During development, Shimomura discussed her music with the game's other developers so it fit the game's world, along with reading the story. Many of the tracks began as requests from the writers, and for some pieces there was a lot of consultation with staff including director Hajime Tabata while they were being written. Several tracks were meant to emote specific moods. For "Luna", the theme for the character Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Shimomura used the character's beauty and strength as inspiration; for the titular theme of main protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum, she chose to represent the weight of destiny upon him and his inner thoughts, creating a soft piece that portrayed his emotions. The theme "Apocalypsis Noctis" was intended to be both magnificent and intense, while the track "Melancolia" was meant to evoke sadness. The music had to include tracks for various times of day due to the game's day-night cycle. Uematsu's "Main Theme", a recurring theme within the Final Fantasy series, also appeared in an arranged form created by Shimomura and Nakama. Another recurring theme in the series, Uematsu's "Chocobo" theme, was remixed by Ohta for the tracks "Blues de Chocobo" and "Rodeo de Chocobo".
Concerning tracks related to times of day and elements such as battle themes, Shimomura allowed the flow of gameplay to dictate the flow of her music, which required putting in a number of natural transition points within pieces so the break would be smooth. To help with this, a special software tool called MAGI (Music API for Gaming Interaction) was developed to manage the tempo and create sync points that allowed the music's flow to be interactive while keeping its "epic" sound and scope. When the game began development as Versus XIII it used the same sound environment as Final Fantasy XIII, but with the move to new hardware the sound team needed to design a new sound environment. To develop the sound software, the team partnered with CRI Middleware to integrate the company's CRI ADX 2 middleware into the game's native sound environment. The amount of sound data, which also included 300 tracks of standalone music and 150 tracks of environmental music, required for the game was so large that there were fears it would not fit onto the game disc alongside the rest of the game data.
Theme songs
The game's theme song is a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me", performed by the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine and sung by the band's leader, Florence Welch. It was used in all versions of the game. The cover used a full orchestra, including brass, strings and timpani. In addition, the recurring theme "Prelude to Final Fantasy" was incorporated as a backing player on the harp. Welch stated that she wanted to make a "mystical" contribution to the game. She also commented that "Stand by Me" was a difficult song to improve upon. When deciding upon an artist who had their own unique "world" that would fit with the setting of XV, Florence and the Machine was one of many bands Square Enix looked at.
In the context of XV, "Stand by Me" was not intended as a love song, but rather as a message or prayer of gratitude from Noctis to all who had supported him on his journey, including Lunafreya, his father Regis and his three companions Gladiolus Amicitia, Ignis Scientia and Prompto Argentum. Welch's contribution is notable as Final Fantasy theme songs have traditionally been performed by Asian singers, with the exception of XIII which substituted the Leona Lewis single "My Hands" in its English release for the Japanese version's "Kimi ga Iru Kara". In addition to the cover for "Stand by Me", Florence and the Machine created two original songs inspired by the world and story of XV, also sung by Welch: "Too Much Is Never Enough" and "I Will Be". Not all of the theme songs were used in the base game, with some coming in future content.
Additional media In addition to Final Fantasy XV, the game received various forms of expanded media as part of a move to prevent the story spanning multiple games: this project was dubbed the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", and included Platinum Demo, the CGI feature film Kingsglaive, the original net animation series Brotherhood, and the mobile title Justice Monsters V. The music for Brotherhood was composed by Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki of Righttrack. For Justice Monsters V, the music was composed by a five-member team from the music production company, Unique Note.