Final Fantasy 16's producer has revealed the upcoming title has recorded its British-English audio before dubbing into Japanese, explaining why those tasks have been switched from what is the norm.
Square Enix is a Japanese studio, which means many of its games are typically made with Japanese gamers in mind. The Final Fantasy series might be the best example of that. The games are clearly influenced by Japanese culture, and like a great many games from various studios based in Japan, the Japanese versions of the voice recordings are completed first.
For Final Fantasy games, the Japanese voice work is done first and the English dub follows after. However, the producer of Final Fantasy 16 Naoki Yushida has revealed that the system has been turned on its head for the next major game in the series. “We’ve been prioritizing English voice recording. And we’re specifically doing it in British English,” Yoshida revealed in a Japanese interview translated by DualShockers.
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“We’re using facial capture, so later on, we won’t have to adjust by hand each of the faces during cutscenes,” Yoshida went on to say while explaining why Square has decided to do things this way around. “the motion capture actors are also doing the voice acting simultaneously… that’s why English dubbing has progressed the most. The Japanese dubbing will start soon.” The use of the term British English rather than just English is significant too. The game appears to have been inspired by the British Medieval era, and also has a cast of English-speaking British actors, so using British English in-game makes a lot of sense.
Yoshida revealed earlier this month that Final Fantasy 16's English voice recording was almost complete, leading many to believe that must mean the Japanese recording is already done. That is not the case, and the Japanese voice recording is "getting there". Further proof that despite Square's hope Final Fantasy fans will get another look at the game during the Tokyo Game Show 2021, it's probably best not to get your hopes up.
As touched upon by Yoshida during the interview above, dubbing games into different languages isn't as simple as you might think. Providing you don't want your game to look like an old kung-fu movie that has been poorly dubbed into English that is. Lost Judgment's head of localization recently posted a lengthy Twitter thread detailing just how arduous it has been to make sure the sequel is released in both English and Japanese at the same time, a first for a game taking place in the Yakuza universe.
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