Soken was born on January 10, 1975, in
La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. He and his family later moved to
Tokyo, Japan, where he majored in chemistry at the
Tokyo University of Science. He was exposed to music at a young age—his father was a professional trumpet player and his mother taught piano. At Konami, he worked on the arcade rail shooting game
Evil Night. He joined
Square in 1998 and his early work at the company primarily focused on sound effect design, rather than composition. Along with
Kenji Ito and
Tsuyoshi Sekito, he created the soundtrack to
Dawn of Mana (known as "
Seiken Densetsu 4" in Japan), with
Academy Award-winning composer
Ryuichi Sakamoto providing the main theme. Soken also arranged a few tracks from previous
Mana games, and performed the
electric guitar for his arrangements. In 2007, he scored the
online game Elebest with Ai Yamashita. Soken's only composition in the game. He also participated in a Square Enix advertisement for pencils where he got beaten up by two robots; the commercial featured music composed by him. Soken created the
fanfare for Square Enix Music TV, a monthly video feature where new album releases are discussed and interviews with Square Enix composers are conducted. and "Languid Afternoon" for the third volume in 2007; he went under the alias "Sorbonne Soken" on the third volume. In 2008, he composed the Japan-exclusive
Nanashi no Game, this time under the pseudonym "Luis Noma". In 2010, he composed another sports game for the Wii,
Mario Sports Mix. Since the 2010 development team reshuffling, he has been sound director for
Final Fantasy XIV. Soken became primary composer for the title with the launch of
A Realm Reborn and the expansions that followed. He formed a
rock band called The Primals, with members of the sound team and translator
Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, to play at
Final Fantasy XIV events such as Fan Festival. The Primals have since released several albums starting with
Final Fantasy XIV: From Astral to Umbral. Soken was tasked with the composition.
Shadowbringers was the first expansion in the
Final Fantasy XIV series to be written without Uematsu's direct involvement. In May 2021, during the
Final Fantasy XIV Digital Fan Festival, Soken announced that he had been receiving
chemotherapy for cancer treatment throughout most of 2020, adding that the cancer was in
remission. Soken kept the treatment hidden from most of the development team, doing some of his work for
Final Fantasy XIV from the hospital. In September 2020, Square Enix announced that
Final Fantasy XVI was in development for PlayStation 5. Though not detailed initially, in June 2022, further information was revealed, including that Soken would be the game's lead composer. For his work on
Final Fantasy XVI, Soken and his team would be nominated and then win the
Game Award for Best Score and Music in 2023. ==Musical style and influences==