Carlos de la Fuente Lucas Torres – Sound Designer
Introduction
Music plays a fundamental role in shaping the emotional identity of an MMOPRPG. Beyond simply accompanying gameplay, a solid soundtrack helps define the world, reinforce its narrative, and create lasting memories for players. The genre has inherited a tradition where music becomes inseparable from the experience of exploration, combat, and storytelling.
For Forgotten Runiverse, the goal was to build a musical identity capable of supporting a vast magical world filled with diverse regions, factions, and narrative moments.
The Challenge
Leaving a mark on players — taking into account the high level and legacy left by composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Kow Otani, etc. — is not easy at all.
Forgotten Runiverse has been a significant challenge, requiring experimentation with different ways of creating music, from the nostalgia of synthesizers to the essence of purely orchestral instruments.
More than two and a half hours of music accompany each story, each character, and each region. This is one of the main characteristics of music created for an RPG video game. This was the main challenge: to unify, with music, the essence of Forgotten Runiverse.
Since it is a “magical” world, it was important that the music capture this theme. The use of modality was fundamental in creating this magical feeling in the atmosphere.
Battles, like in any RPG, presented a significant challenge: to create the right atmosphere for each style. In combat, you can fight common or standard enemies, bosses, and elite enemies. Because of this, it was very important to clearly differentiate each type of battle through the music.
Another of the big challenges was to adapt all (or most) of the musical tracks to the different factions/colors that are represented in Forgotten Runiverse, since each one of them conveys something different
- Red (Red Magic): Musically, the main reference was Shinra (FFVII)—a sleek, wealthy, power-driven identity that mirrors Red’s focus on money, prosperity, and political influence.
- Blue (Blue Magic): The music was centered on prayer and spirituality, reflecting Blue’s disciplined pursuit of knowledge with a more sacred, contemplative character.
- Green (Green Magic): Music that comes from the earth, with special emphasis on percussion and woodwind/wood-based timbres, reinforcing Green’s bond with nature and living ecosystems.
- Yellow (Yellow Magic): The “Sun Coast”. Music designed to live in the moment, capturing a carefree culture focused on pleasure, youth, and celebration.
Because of this, you can listen to the same track in four different musical styles, but it is still the same track.
Key Criteria
Creativity was always the main principle. Within this framework, the goal was to touch the players emotionally.
Synthetic sounds that imitate retro aesthetics were used, trying to adapt to the pixel art theme that the video game offers.
It was very important to always have meetings with the Game and Level Design team, because it is such a large game, the world that was being created was constantly changing. Thanks to these meetings, problems related to the sound design of characters, spells, and UI could be solved.
From the very beginning, it was decided to combine “cartoon” and real elements to give life to the project.
In general, there were no restrictions, but it was important to keep an aesthetic that matched the image.
The Solution
To achieve this type of sound, work was done in Cubase and VST libraries specialized in different types of waveforms and synthesizers.
Own sounds and libraries were created to give a personal touch to each piece in this sound universe.
Knowing how to combine synthesizers with purely orchestral instruments was another key aspect in transmitting emotions.
It is a perfect fusion between nostalgia and modernity.
Results
The essence of Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, and Chrono Trigger was successfully conveyed to the players.
Each player felt immersed in the game’s story, demonstrating that the soul of the Forgotten Runiverse is perfectly attuned to its narrative and characters.
From the very beginning, it received a very positive reception from the public.
The community response on Discord and Twitter speaks for itself.
