Nobuo Uematsu retiring from composing video game music [update: only full soundtracks]

Original: Nobuo Uematsu has had an absolutely legendary career in the video game space, but it seems he’ll be wrapping things up soon. A recent video in which we get to hear briefly from Uematsu indicates that he’ll be retiring from the industry. Fantasian Neo Dimension will be his “final project”.

Uematsu briefly said the following in a video about the upcoming Switch RPG: “This is my final project as a composer of video game music. I hope you’ll pick it up and play it! Thanks for your support!”

Uematsu is best known for his work during his years at Square Enix. He joined the company in 1986 where he was involved with many Final Fantasy games. His output has slowed down a bit over the past few years, but he’s still composed music for various games. Outside of Final Fantasy, you can hear his tunes in The Last Story, Blue Dragon, Fantasy Life, and more. We should also mention that he made the main theme for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

As for Fantasian Neo Dimension, the Switch game will be ready to go on December 5, 2024. You can find more coverage on it right here.

Thanks to Square Enix for today’s news. Thanks to Polygon for the image above.

Update: Uematsu has now clarified on social media that he won’t be retiring fully. While he’ll still work on songs here and there, he only won’t compose full soundtracks.

“I’m going to cut back a bit on my video game music work because I want to have more time to make the music I want to make. It would be difficult for me to take on the entire soundtrack of a video game because the time commitment for composing would be too long, but I would like to continue to work on jobs such as one theme song.”