Tempest on the Battlefield/Stillness Underground

Track 3-20: Tempest on the Battlefield

This is multipurpose event music, but when I wrote it I was thinking of the battle scene from Chapter 1 of Hikari’s story. This scene was shown at the 2022 Tokyo Game Show when OCTOPATH TRAVELER II was first unveiled, as one of two emblematic scenes that showcased the full possibilities of the new game’s next-level visuals and dynamic camera angles, so I was determined to make the music something special as well.

The title was also inspired by Hikari’s opening battle. When you listen to the piece in isolation, its sheer intensity makes it feel more like battle music than an event theme, but I hope you enjoy it as an event theme with that level of power behind it.

Track 3-21: Stillness Underground

Somehow, I had never written a piece for OCTOPATH TRAVELER that made use throughout of pizzicato (a playing technique where the violins and other stringed instruments are plucked with the fingers instead of played with a bow, to create a more percussive sound). I believe that made this piece feel quite fresh.

With pizzicato, the players pluck their instruments’ strings with their fingers rather than drawing a bow across them. This creates a sound with decay. The steady rhythm of the pizzicato has a serene quality to it, but I also feel that the comfortable space between notes creates a silence that conveys the feel of an underground space.

Translation: Matt Treyvaud