[Jormungand]

Hey, it's a tradition now.

I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that Masayoshi Soken won't take the lead on both FF16 and FF14/Endwalker. The general fandom is all but certain he is helming FF16, based purely on the fact that it is developed by Creative Business Unit III. But as far as I know, there is nothing confirming or even hinting at it.

Recent years have seen a wide swing toward ever-growing teams of composers and arrangers for Square Enix's flagship titles, even if a single composer is the named as the "lead" (consider how in FF15 the average consumer didn't learn of the dozen others involved till the game's ending credits rolled).

Years ago when we did the FF15 thread, I was all but certain of some contributions by both Naoshi Mizuta and Mitsuto Suzuki; that prediction was dead wrong. Mizuta got a cameo in some DLC. And Suzuki showed up later when FF7R rolled out, a new "series" that is part of Square's flagship line-up. But that game saw an exponentially expanded soundtrack team, including old favorites such as Masashi Hamauzu and newcomers alike. FF14 has never been a one-man show either.

So what does the resident game music community expect for this new, very dark-fantasy-themed next-gen title? You might consider two different ways of responding to this prompt: 1) what you expect based on recent trends and 2) what you hope for.