Nobuo Uematsu—legendary music composer for a host of video games, including the Final Fantasy franchise—has revealed that he doesn’t think he can compose the soundtrack for an entire game ever again. Caught by VGC, Uematsu made the feeling clear while talking to German publication Zeit Online.
While Uematsu still does compose music for the Final Fantasy franchise, namely in composing the games’ main title tracks, he revealed that doesn’t see himself composing an entire game’s worth of soundtrack again. In large part this comes down to the amount of work needed to compose a game’s soundtrack.
“As far as Final Fantasy is concerned, I’m still involved by writing the main themes for the games,” said Uematsu in response to being asked whether he could be convinced to compose a whole game’s soundtrack again. “But I don’t think I’ll compose music for a whole game again.”
Uematsu believes that his age has led him to not have the physical and mental strength to put in the work required for a complete video game soundtrack anymore.
“You would have to give it full throttle for two or three years. And I don’t think I have the physical and mental strength to do it anymore,” he said. “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.”
For context, Uematsu is still involved in composing music, with his work being present in Final Fantasy 16, and even the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. The last full soundtrack Uematsu composed was 2021’s RPG Fantasian.