Be honest – how much of your music library is made up of video game OSTs?
Don’t be shy about admitting it! It’s easy to become attached to the soundtrack of a good game. Consider this – Amazon’s best-selling game of 2020 engrossed most players for around 100 hours or more! That’s a lot of time to spend hearing the same music tracks. That music becomes deeply associated with your memory of the game, and will eventually age into sentimental nostalgia.
That’s all the more true for games within the MMORPG genre. Subscription-based MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV are designed to keep players involved for a span of months or years. The end result is that people like me will fall in love with the world, the lore, and the shared adventure, and will amass a playtime numbering in the thousands of hours.
So you can see how an endearing soundtrack becomes a necessity for such a game. Taking Final Fantasy XIV as an example, let’s further discuss why it’s important for a soundtrack to resonate with players and how an MMO can meet the challenge.
Telling a Story Across Years
Games within the MMORPG genre offer a unique chance to participate in an epic odyssey that unfolds over the course of many years. Even casual players who only occasionally return to the game to check out the latest story updates will find themselves feeling intimately involved with the ongoing events of an evolving world full of complex characters and rich history.
Music plays an important, yet subtle role in telling such a longform story.
Aside from incorporating exquisite tracks which set the mood and guide the emotional state of the player (which is an amazing feat unto itself), Final Fantasy XIV employs two techniques in particular that elevate the story through sound.
– Introducing each expansion with a grandiose set piece of music.
FFXIV has followed a trend of releasing a major story expansion every two years, starting with Heavensward in 2015. These 60+ hour campaigns are always preluded with a musical set piece that establishes the mood of the expansion, along with powerful lyrics that foreshadow the tone of events to come.
– Inclusion of leitmotifs to cue listeners in on story relevance.
In a game with many plotlines progressing concurrently, and so many references to other games in the series, FFXIV’s clever use of leitmotifs is an elegant way to associate an event with a previous story point. When you hear a familiar musical phrase during a scene or decisive battle, you know that it relates to an overarching motif.
Repetition of Music in the Gameplay Loop
Outside of the main narrative that drives the game, an MMO needs to offer fun content that players will enjoy repeating on an indefinite loop, or at least long enough to keep them enthralled until the next big update brings fresh new activities to the table.
In Final Fantasy XIV, much of the gameplay loop involves hunting for increasingly powerful gear or rare items via repetition of certain instanced content. Players will spend much time in these dungeons, raids, or forays – so the area music or encounter music needs to get them excited every time.
And when all is said and done, players might hear a BGM a few months or years later and look back fondly on the time they spent overcoming a struggle with their friends.
One song that I’ve definitely heard way too much!
Inviting Players Back to the Adventure
Part of Final Fantasy XIV’s success is due to a philosophy that is baked into the development of the game – As director/producer Naoki Yoshida has stated on multiple occasions, players can and should take breaks from the MMORPG to tend to their daily lives and enjoy other games or entertainment.
The world of FFXIV is a world full of adventure. While you’re there, you should allow yourself to get lost in the wonder and fantasy. And when you return to that world after a restful hiatus, those feelings should wash over you again.
If you’re a FFXIV player, odds are you last logged out of the game in a Sanctuary – one of the main cities of the world. When you come back, you might be greeted by the rousing instrumentals of Limsa Lominsa which evokes thoughts of new beginnings, or that of the Crystarium which speaks to its presence as a bastion of hope in a world full of danger, or any of the myriad other tunes that beckon you heartily towards your next great journey.
Conclusion
It’s no coincidence that Final Fantasy XIV and composer Masayoshi Soken have set the record for most original pieces of music in a video game. The team behind FFXIV shows a great deal of respect for the role music plays in their game and for the players who experience it so personally.
Music gives rise to nostalgia like nothing else can. So leave a comment below and tell me about the adventures that come to mind when you hear your favorite tracks from Final Fantasy XIV!