Music to Level Up Your Day: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

March 09, 2022

I don't know much about musical theory, nor am I a musically inclined person. However, I do love to listen to video game soundtracks. Who doesn't? They can be a powerful listening experience in their own right, or be as evocative as the scores composed for film. Each of these posts will feature music tracks from a single game title, or series/franchise in some rare cases.

Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda, Kenji Hiramatsu, Manami Kiyota, and ACE

Singer: Jennifer Bird

North American Release Date: December 2017

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 takes place in Alrest, a world covered in a sea of clouds. Humans live on top of and inside of large living creatures known as Titans. Some people, known as "Drivers" can summon powerful "Blades" from crystals. The story follows a salvager and Driver named Rex, who promises to take the legendary Blade Pyra to the fabled paradise Elysium.

Mitsuda and Takahashi held numerous meetings discussing the overall direction of the music. They eventually invited the musical group ACE and Kenji Hiramatsu to the project, who had previously done work for the first Xenoblade Chronicles game. At the meetings, each composer's contribution to the soundtrack was decided. ACE would primarily handle the field music and Hiramatsu would handle the battle music. With contributions from over 300 total musicians and 20,000 sheets worth of music, Mitsuda considered it the largest project he had ever worked on; files and data from his Pro Tools and music production software surpassed one terabyte in size.

Tantal | (Area Theme - Day)