Final Fantasy 16 is prioritising ‘British English’, producer reveals

Final Fantasy 16’s producer has revealed that the game’s dialogue is being recorded in “British English” as its primary language, with a Japanese dub coming later in development.

The Square Enix series usually prioritises Japanese as its primary recording language, however Naoki Yoshida explained in a new Japanese interview (translated via Dualshockers) that the decision to use English was made due to the requirement to capture performance actors’ faces.

“We’ve been prioritizing English voice recording. And we’re specifically doing it in British English,” the producer said. “We’re using facial capture, so later on, we won’t have to adjust by hand each of the faces during cutscenes.

“And it’s full capture, as in, the motion capture actors are also doing the voice acting simultaneously. Well, we’re not doing it for every single cutscene though. But anyway, that’s why English dubbing has progressed the most. The Japanese dubbing will start soon.”

Final Fantast 16 was announced last summer as a PlayStation 5 exclusive release. The game features a medieval-inspired setting and, going by its debut trailer, a cast of mostly British voice actors.

Yoshida’s comments come after he claimed in a Square Enix live stream earlier this month that the English voice work for FF16 was almost complete, leading some fans to assume that meant Japanese work had also been nearly finished.

In the same interview, Yoshida said Square Enix would ideally like to show the new game at Tokyo Game Show, which runs September 30 – October 3.

However, he suggested that the game’s development team might not make the deadline, and indicated that he’d like to next show FF16 when it’s closer to release.

“We really want to show something for Tokyo Game Show 2021, but we probably can’t make that deadline… we definitely want to show it, but isn’t it better if when we do, you’re able to play it right after?

He added: “I personally don’t like it when small bits of info is release to string people along. I talked about this with the team and director Takai-san. We want to reveal something where people will say, ‘I want to play it now! Release it now!’ And we can reply, ‘sure, here you go!’”