MUSIC DIRECTOR REACTS | Final Fantasy XIV - Endwalker – Footfalls

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Endwalker is the culmination of a ten year long story, and Footfalls incorporates the main themes from every other expansion released in that time, and they play alongside the relevant characters to those expansions. Soken is a genius.

You'd be stunned by the variety of in-game music in XIV, it's actually insane.

At about 13:50 you mentioned how it sounds "super contemporary" and like everything is sorta working together, which is actually one of the major themes of this release, the expansion is the culmination of over a decade of story, which mixes so many themes from previous releases, with a story about kinda uniting the world against greater threat. Thematically speaking, this "working together" fits perfectly, and I love it so much. Cool to see you enjoyed the song and especially some of the transitions. Soken's work in general is really interesting and he explores a LOT of genres and styles.

endwalker truly couldn't have come at a better time. like so many feeling lost and on the edge of giving up, endwalker was my reminder to "forge ahead" and that succumbing to despair isn't the answer. the last section hits so hard, "you're not alone" was a message i think so many of us needed to hear.

I like how he was “it makes sense, it’s for a trailer” and we FF14 players are like “it plays in the game in the game and it is sooooo epic”

12:15 this section always gets me and the "Higher, oh higher" gives me chills every. friggin. time.

Footfalls is the combination of each ff14 expansion theme combined into 1 song. If you are unfamiliar it may sound very chaotic but knowing the previous themes and seeing Soken combining them into 1 song for the final expansion of the 10 year long story - it's just a masterpiece.

Did he ever figure out that they were a collective of motifs? XD Endwalker, Heavensward, Stormblood, a segment of Torn From the Heavens, Sharlyan's theme, Shadowbringers, and ending with the Endwalker motif. Also, I think if he wants to get the true effect of how the song works with everything, he should watch the full trailer with the voices left in, because so much of the music is structured around the in-scene dialogue as if the sound effects and conversations are actually part of the music.

The final shot of the WoL turning and standing in front of ehteryis with the climax of the song happening always makes me tear up

So the reason the trailer has such a varied sound is because the expansion itself is a huge culmination of the events of the last 10 years of the game, the 3 distinct sections of the song (The Dragon Song is from the expansion Heavansward, the "Storm of Blood" section is from Stormblood, and the stringy bit near the end is from Shadowbringers) before it all comes back to finish the Endwalker portion from the beginning. Great Video, loved hearing your thoughts from your point of view as someone who I imagine, has not played this game.

I love that this is called Endwalker Footfalls, because each time you pointed out a shift in the feel of the type of song it is, it's another "step", another "footfall" in the journey the players have taken in this game. The visual transitions in the trailer hammer home this point, reminding us of where we've been, the people and places that are important to us, to get us to this point as we "walk towards the end" of this arc in the story. I noticed that you noted more often in the back half of the song that the music layers got a lot busier; to me, this reflects an aural storytelling. In the beginning of the trailer, the "player character" stand-in is walking alone, but with each step we've taken on this journey we've gained more, lost more, learned more, building into a climactic finale where everything comes to a head and we must be there to face it with everything we have, and thus why the music itself is so layered and busy.

Koji Fox is so impressive man. He was just a localizer with basically no background in music besides an anecdotal experience with the drums. Now he has become a crazy good lyricist. His style meshes so well with how Soken writes/composes the songs and Soken pushes the fuck out of his ability. I remember my Jaw dropping when I heard Rise for the first time. It's a running joke that he basically had to manipluate time to fit all the lyrics in the space that he did. He has slowly become a pretty good voalist as well. Basically every new primals song he gets better and better. I think the coolest part about FF14 music is how many version of each song they make. They make individual covers, trailer music, actual in game music, and remasters of basically every single song in the game.

Footfalls is essentially a collection of leitmotifs from the previous expansions’ main thematic soundtrack scores.

If you've played this game for 10 years and don't get tears of joy in your eyes while listening to this song, you're a robot.

Definitely gotta check out Dragonsong or Answers sometime. Dragonsong is just an all around beautiful song. Answers, while you won't have the context of the entire game to appreciate the meaning of it, is also a beautiful song that has this really great build throughout it.

oh no. oh NO. you cant do this to me as a critically insane ffxiv player. now you have to listen to every single song and praise them to the ends of the earth, thank you

If variety is the spice of life, then Tony you just found it. This song is 🔥

This song is a journey. I apprecate the attention to the percussion you gave. Not many reactors talk about it. The sheer volume of great tracks in FF14 is staggering. If you like that 90s vibe, two songs from the game I recommend checking out. Oblivion and Scream.

Like everyone else said, this is the trailer for the climax of a story 10 years in the making. I think part of why the final section is so loud is because it's like a minute-long crescendo celebrating both the players and the game's milestone achievement.