Ultima Thule Theme 1 "Echoes in the Distance" - FFXIV OST 

when I first landed in ultima Thule yesterday, it felt really empty and the music sounded like if the last person alive on the planet was blasting a song on the radio

I am so happy that I finally found someone who uploaded this particular version of the song. Closing the distance is super good, but this version just has a specific mood to it that I wanted to hear again

The Lamentations of countless dying stars.. Mourning echoes in the distance condensed into static in the aether. Listen closely, and remember that they once lived.

Ultima Thule really gave off that "Final Fantasy ending zone" vibe. What I like most about it is that you always had "The nest" in mind as the final zone. But what does it actually look like? We never knew until we got there, and with "our friends" speech before the zone's reveal... it couldn't have been more perfect.

Just so yall know, ultima thule is a real place. It is a space object beyond Neptune, it is 32 km long. It was the farthest object in the solar system visited by man-made craft in 2019, hence the name ultima thule (which means "farthest point" or "farthest location"). The name was changed to arrokoth

When I first landed, man I felt a massive sense of sadness, dread, sorrow and the feeling that I just wanted to crawl into bed and cry for no reason. I swear, EW has got to be on of the most amazing experience as well as shadowbringers. I just completed the ew expansion last night at 5am lol

When I did the "Returning Home" quest, when you choose which character visits you at night (I choose G'raha btw) I wanted to know all other dialogues, and most of them revolve around the idea of being worried for you, or showing you support, or telling you their concerns, etc. Thancred is like "I trust you and the Scions with my life, and I'd like to think the feeling is at least occasionaly mutual", and being worried if his choices from now on could put the rest in danger and asking you to beat some sense into it and wanting to know if he has your back and your support, almost going completely opposite on the general idea of what the rest says. He's not asking you to show restraint, he's asking you to go beyond. He's asking you if you're willing to sacrifice yourself for him in the same way he's willing to do it for you and the rest of the Scions. Then Ultima Thule happens. The Ragnarok arrives, you meet Meteion once again, and what Thancred does? He does exactly what he wanted to know if you were willing to do: to sacrifice yourself for him and the rest of the Scions, but instead he takes it for the team, before you can even think about "beating some sense into him". He didn't need any kind words as proof that you would 100% do what he asked. It's almost as if all he did that night when he visited you, is to let you know that when the time comes, he's going to do what needed to be done. "I trust you and the Scions with my life, and I'd like to think the feeling is at least occasionaly mutual". Thancred is gone. Now this song plays.

I swear I can hear the sound of a life support monitor in the background. Really adds to the experience

You can just hear 'Close in the Distance' in the negative space of this track that just helps make it extra haunting.

It's funny; as somber as this place is initially, the music sounds like something's about to be born.

I love how just like in The Tempest, the different versions of the final zone's music emphasize different tones and feelings. Though this track's evolution was far more savage.

When this music started. When the zone title card appeared. I just knew what came next. We all did. What a masterfully done final zone with some of the best music in a game full of the best music.

i wish the theme went back to this after finishing endwalker. the full version works so well for that triumphant “final walk” but when i go to ultima thule i want to bask in the quiet melancholy, surrounded by dying stars and stagnated planets.

it's absolutely the feeling of resignation, of a bitter end, but one you can't help being nostalgic for; of lying down and giving up and falling into a long sleep that you never wake up from. I really enjoy the way that the "skies clear" with this track so to speak as our Warrior carries forward with hope and literally warps the fabric of this place into "a way through". even though it's sad, even though we're saying our goodbyes, there is always the promise of a new beginning around the corner if you just have the courage to see it through..

The music when you first get here was great, it really helped me wonder what Ultima Thule was about

so creepy. I really felt something special coming here, the sense of desolation and end. one of my favourite zone ever in any game

Just reached Ultima Thule... What a sad and dark place, giving a real "end of the universe" vibe. Good fit for the last area of this story ^^

Really felt an oddly soothing vibe here.

This song makes me feel so empty inside. Like being on your deathbed, looking back on everything that's happened to you...but it's only sad moments, nothing happy or worthwhile. I very much related to every sad soul in Ultima Thule. I found myself rooting for the villains most of the time :') "To live is to suffer"

Really reflects Meteion's point of view of death and the tragic tales the other stars had been through until they met their end. (aka the beeping sound etc.). But it also reflects WoL's inner world, who had faced the same tragic things, but found the strength to keep going forward.

The most beautiful and location fitting ost ever. Thank you so much.

Close the Distance is great and all, but this, this one feels so distant. So much further away. It feels so much more vast and empty. The dread and isolation. And yet it's not an impactful and sudden sadness but more of a sombre, slow kind of sadness.

Finally got to this area last night and this music had me reflecting on my past. This entire journey is one brought to life by a great fellowship of heroes that became lifelong friends. I abandoned my friends…shunned them away because of my own personal troubles. This part of the game really opened my eyes as to how difficult a person I can be but how I can change for the better.

I prefer this music for the zone, i don't like it that the MSQ changed the music here permanently

Thank you for uploading this copy of Onions in the Distance.

Had no idea the song had vocals, and yet, when I first heard this track, i already knew it was a masterpiece

If I had to describe this zone, it felt like the equivalent of landing on our moon. Lifeless. Quiet. And cold. Despite it all though, it still spins. Like any other planet would.

The way I interpreted the dragons when first entering Ultima Thule: They have no home, their offsprings are either born mutated from the environment or not born at all. They have no reasons to sing, so when I read their dialog it's with hopeless whispers of elders in mourning. I still feel immense sorrow for them, they fought to save their homeworld from the Omicron civilization, and by the time they were defeated the same conquerors moved on seeing the expenditure of resources to have been a costly war but left them unhindered for the next world, leaving the dragons with nothing to rebuild.

I can't put it into words that aren't a novel but I can't stop coming back to this. It's so melancholc yet peaceful in a way I can't describe, as if the song is saying this is the end but that's okay.

This theme takes me back to my first steps onto ultima thuke and really upsets me ❤

This is unquestionably my favorite overworld theme in this game. I think it hit me really hard the first time because it reminded me of One Chance’s main theme. I say a lot of the time that it would make a ton of sense for one of the stars visited by Meteion to have just been one of One Chance’s bad endings.

I want this to be the last thing I hear as I pass on from this world

When my brother and I were playing EW at around the same time. He was ahead of me by a couple of quests, but I was going at my own pace enjoying the game. He told me to crank up the volume when I reach Ultima Thule. I did, and I was confused by this eerie music. So I continued playing and saw that the music changes as the story progressed. This is absolutely brilliant in music and game design. Til this day, I still listen to EW tracks. Not only because it's amazing pieces of music - but also a way to relieve the way the game made me feel. And that's really whats making me come back.

This track really set me up for tears for when the vocals came in at the end of the map. I wasnt expecting it and I BAWLED

I love this version, even tho it sounds hopeless and dreadful. But that heart montior sound and fact muffle instruments. Give me the fealing thier something screaming alone, but refusing to give up hope

Love this. Between being in outer space at the edge of the universe and this song, you feel like you’re being choked and closed in. In this case, by despair.

I need a 10 hour version of this to fall asleep to

There aren’t a lot of games out there that I can say helped me keep my head on straight during a rough period in my life. I’m happy to say FF 14 is one of those games. Not only did it make me laugh and cry, it taught me real life lessons that I can apply to my reality. Especially this last area with all its philosophical talk, it really touched my heart and I couldn’t be more thankful ❤

It makes me real upset that the Close in the Distance forever plays in Ultima Thule after the MSQ, it fit for its section of the MSQ but all feeling about it is lost when it plays constantly in the zone. Echoes in the Distance fits the zone's aesthetic a lot more.

I wish I could revert the zone back to this without plugins

I use Orchestrion to keep this version playing when I come back to Thule for whatever reason. I feel like the vocal version is a bit too intense when I'm just farming FATEs or whatnot. It's so haunting and has stuck with me to this day.

Man, wish there was a way we can petition to YoshiP and his team to include Echoes in the Distance along with Close in the Distance playing sequentially whenever we're in UT...

God this hits way too deep. Why does this music in particular shake my soul...

One thing about this is that I love the build up to the actual song as you progress on through the missions

Glad someone uploaded this. Imo this should've been Ultima Thules Theme post MSQ or atleast should've given us a toogle (ik theres the Bandaid Solution of using New Game+). As good as Close in the Distance is (specally during MSQ) it never felt fitting post MSQ while this Eerie (dunno if this the best Word for it) Music fits much more imo. Currently on my 4th Char going trough EW and it just feels so diffrent hearing the Zone again with something more fitting instead of the same Vocals on Loop

I just finished Endwalker, what a journey... 🥺😭

I'm trying my hardest not to cry.... I swear....

When I got here and heard the first iteration of the theme, it reminded me of "Everywhere at the end of time" which, for those that don't know, is an audio representation of what it's like to lose your mind to dementia/Alzheimer's. Needless to say it gave me a very uneasy feeling, and actually made my skin crawl.

When I arrived in this zone, I was captivated by the scenery and the music. The landscape is desolate and eerie, yet still somehow beautiful in this multitude of dark shades, all floating around the most alien skies a space setting could muster. All the while, you have this theme playing, somewhat looping wrongly and droning on and on, like a broken radio still echoing from the corner of a large disaffected warehouse. You're not supposed to be here - nobody is - in this place where time itself comes to die, yet there's still so much (tragic?) beauty all around, and nobody to experience it; much less appreciate it. Still, both provided a welcome distraction from the ambiant... depression of the place, in a way. The music in peculiar reminded me of other works structured around loops and sound degradation, such as Basinski's "Disintegration Loops" or Hecker's "Ravedeath". Meanwhile the nebulae and other objects in the skies lighted up again my incredible appreciation for the care that goes into crafting even the most basic details as a skybox in this game. Great work all around.

missed it immediately when it stopped. the times when ffxiv makes me feel like i'm playing an rpg are the most special to me. this felt like the end of one.

Man I miss this theme, wish we could change it back to this one instead of Close to the Distance

It sounds like vaporwave. Maybe that's why it invokes such feelings of drifting, idle loneliness and bygone sorrow? It has a kind of VHS-esque sound quality to it somehow. Hard to describe.

This area broke me so hard when i got to it.

I love to listen to this track with my eyes closed

Sounds like Soken bit-crushed this piano . It’s so good

When EW came out, I was playing it on a sparsely populated Japanese server, mostly due to the crazy queue times on NA data centers. Because of that, I went through areas like Ultime Thule and the moon with basically no players around. It really fit the areas and was more enjoyable.

I just wanted to express it here months after. This final zones theme is HEAVILY influenced by Outer Wilds. As you lose your friends to the universe, the music becomes more powerful, their dreams living on with you. Im so glad that games soundtrack had a profound influence on the risks and creativity music in a game could bring because it led to this culmination right here.

The sound of this BGM is obviously layers of the BGM opening up as each .. uh.. "event" (trying to avoid spoilers) happens. But this first segment? Is perfect for an empty dead space out in the furthest reaches from civilization.

Impressive

This weirdly reminds me of the end of Doki Doki Literature Club and the knowing that there's an end. But maybe it's also the static-y, fuzzy sound effect as well :D

This version of the song has an odd effect on me. It makes it so very easy to just completely zone out.

Brb, doing groceries at Ultima Thule supermarket

Kinda reminds me of ffx tower of the dead inside of sin

So much wasted catharsis when NONE of the Scions ended up dying by the end. Zenos did a lot of carrying for wrapping up Endwalker's themes of struggle and sacrifice, persisting in the face of despair and suffering. The music and area design of Ultima Thule were also lovely, too. Hearing this theme for the first time while seeing Thancred is gone after sacrificing himself almost made me cry.

We're too far away from Etheirys to hear "close the distance" - all we hear are distorted echoes from our home at the edge of space.

It sounds like there's a heartrate monitor in the background of this OST

It's giving Outer Wilds and Oxenfree.

Shame that this gets replaced with a vocal version. This is by far the most superior version.

It's a shame the music doesn't change back to this after Meteion. Don't get me wrong Close In the Distance is nice but not constantly

Whenever I hear this theme it feels like I watching an old black and white movie. It makes sense considering what ultima Thule is when you think about it. A place where the hopeless dreams of the dead linger and play back endlessly. But amidst all that there is still a sense of hope in the song, an ironic sense of hope that grows despite the loss of those who came with us.

I always thought Echoes in the Distance is weird as hell, and I didn't realized why until the end of Ultima Thule. Only read on if you finished Endwalker. It is very unique, but at the same time doesn't make sense as a standalone soundtrack. It is the complete opposite of the full soundtrack at the end with the singing voice (which is hopeful and bright). Right when you enter Ultima Thule for the first time you are instantly greeted with this unholy abomination of a soundtrack, something is terribly wrong in this place. It feels like you are walking through a mass graveyard, while shadows of long gone creatures are idly watching you. Neither death or undeath, but in a uncanny stasis inbetween, they dont even exist anymore. Echoes in the Distance represents pure chaos and fear of the unknown, the whole spooky atmosphere of the zone which are death planets and long extinguished races which still give you the feeling as if you are being watched for every step you make. Ultima Thule sounds very sad and the various races you encounter confirm the existential nihilism they all have and share. The instrumental is incomplete, I am not a musician, but you can tell there are some core elements missing, it sounds shallow and hollow, it sounds muffled, various notes that are extremely off. A giant veil of shadow is over the entire zone and it's story. Until you progress in the zone itself. Then you realise it's all a big lie, or to be more precise: we didn't saw the whole picture. It is easy to get lost in the negative and become essencially nihilistic, you think "what's the point?" even. To say it in the words of the legendary Littlefinger: "Chaos is a Ladder", to live is to suffer and to suffer is to live. So much to the philosophy and the soundtrack, I love Endwalker especially for it, it went even deeper than Shadowbringers.

This is NOT something you should listen to while depressed.

Endwalker was an experience. Sure, I almost quit halfway because of the drag out in the first 30 quests and some parts of it really felt like it was all over the place thanks to the many writers, but i liked the atmosphere of it. Felt natural once you got to garlemald and beyond. Minus the stuff in thavnair. Maybe I'm a harsh critic

This is some of the most torturous music I have ever heard.

The Caretaker was here