Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, one of the most renowned musicians in the history of the industry, has said he likely will not make a full game score again, preferring smaller projects instead.
In an interview with Zeit Online (via VGC) ahead of his latest orchestral piece entitled Merregnon: Heart of Ice, he discussed his decision.
“As far as Final Fantasy is concerned, I’m still involved by writing the main themes for the games,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll compose music for a whole game again…I think I’d rather use the time I have left to work on other projects that I love. Such as compositions like Merregnon or my band Uematsu Nobuo conTIKI.”
Uematsu’s most recent work is composing the main theme of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, even though the full score comes from multiple composers.
Uematsu is famous for composing the first nine core entries of the Final Fantasy series but has since taken a step back to the role of contributors on top of spin-offs and other endeavors.
He has remained very close over the years with Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and composed for games coming from his independent studio Mistwalker. In fact, his last score was for Mistwalker’s latest release, an RPG called Fantasian, released exclusively on Apple Arcade.
In a previous interview promoting that game, Sakaguchi said its soundtrack would likely be Uematsu’s last after suffering some health issues.