It's about time Final Fantasy 14 retires one of its most divisive, overused songs

Patch 7.4 hit Final Fantasy 14 earlier this week, bringing a conclusion to the excellent Arcadion raids. Not only have all 12 fights been an absolute joy to play, but the series has some of the strongest identity and cast of characters the game has seen in a good long while.

That's thanks in no small part to each fighter having a unique theme song—something that is not afforded to every raid in this game—and I firmly believe the Arcadion series simply would not have hit the same without Soken's excellent and varied musical work on it. A world where I didn't have Bee My Honey permanently stuck in my head? That's a world I don't wanna live in.

So tell me why, then, Final Fantasy 14, did you STILL manage to cram Machinations into one of the goddamn cutscenes?

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Machinations is that one friend you can't get rid of despite your best attempts. That bit of mold in your bathroom that keeps growing back. That once-favourite song you still can't listen to because you thought setting it as your alarm was a great idea. An ever-present song in Final Fantasy 14, one that has been around since the MMO's not-so-humble beginnings.

It's not even a bad song, really. It's a bold and battle-spurring piece. It's fine.

But its rampant overuse across one decade and five expansions' worth of cutscenes has caused the song to long overstay its welcome, and hearing it yet again in this newest patch has me desperate for the game to mix it up.

It certainly does not help the context in which the song is most often used: unvoiced cutscenes where characters often rehash plot points, plans, or imply some sort of battle lying ahead for the Warrior of Light that will then be discussed again but in a different location. To be blunt, it's filler, reminders of what's actually happening in case you weren't paying attention or took a long break.

I've been Pavlov'd into associating Machinations with the story's lulls. Those first notes play and I feel my eyes glazing over, preparing to only half-read the next several lines of dialogue. I want to be excited about every aspect of the story, and Machinations kinda makes it hard to do that.

Sure, games have always relied on reusing songs; it can immediately establish the vibe with very little effort. Most games do not have hundreds of hours of cutscenes. To make matters worse, it's also the main theme of Wolves' Den, the PvP zone I'm required to visit if I want to tweak my PvP hotbars or spend currency earned through its modes. It is inescapable.

I had hoped the song would be retired when Dawntrail released last year. It was the beginning of a new narrative arc, and the perfect opportunity to shelve it even if it was in favour of a slightly altered rearrangement of the thing. But for whatever reason, Creative Studio 3 are insistent on clinging onto it.

I'll admit it's being used considerably less, but you know what? It's still not enough. So this is my plea: whatever the next expansion may be, please let me never hear Machinations again. Final Fantasy 14 is a game positively spilling over with an exciting and eclectic musical catalogue. Tom Morello has a song in the game, y'all! There are far more bangers than there are duds.

While I wouldn't exactly say Machinations falls into the latter, it has certainly outlived its usefulness. Switching things up would revitalise some of the game's more sluggish narrative moments and breathe new life into clicking through unvoiced dialogue for the millionth time. Please, pretty please. Let the next expansion be the start of something new.