Final Fantasy 16producer Naoki Yoshida revealed yet another update on the Square Enix JRPG and its development, this time on WasyaganaTV, the YouTube show hosted by popular seiyuu Yuichi Nakamura and game journalist Mafia Kajita.
Final Fantasy 16- New development update shared by YoshiP explained
WasyaganaTV onYouTubefeatures both pre-recorded videos and live streams, and on July 25, a special live stream was held with Naoki Yoshida playingFinal Fantasy XIVwith the show’s hosts.
According to Japanese blogGame’s Talk, Naoki Yoshida explained that, as a producer, he follows a strict policy of never attending voice recordings. Following these remarks, the topic shifted towardsFinal Fantasy XVIand its dubbing progress. YoshiP mentioned the game’s English dubbing is nearly over, and the Japanese dubbing will start soon. I translated YoshiP’s comments below as reported by Game’s Talk.
Note that the Wasyagana stream was set to private after it ended, so I can’t link you to specific timestamps.Update:The video is public again, the discussion starts around the 2:49 timestamp linked below:
Naoki Yoshida comments onFinal Fantasy 16voice recording, motion capture
Naoki Yoshida:“I’ve been working onFFXIVfor 8 years now, but I actually never went to any of its recordings. I’m a scenarist myself, so I know that if I go, I’ll step into the writers' shoes. I don’t wanna do that out of respect for them. And I’m both the director and producer of the game. It’ll be confusing if I was there and gave the seiyuu some instructions on top of the writers.”
“What aboutFinal Fantasy 16?”
Naoki Yoshida:“I’m not attending the recordings either. Because I’m not the game’s scenarist. During the scenario-focused meetings we’ve had, we already had a lot of discussions like “this line would be better that way, to show protagonist Clive’s psychology” and those remarks are taken into account during recordings.”
Naoki Yoshida:“We’ve been prioritizing English voice recording. And we’re specifically doing it in British English. 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.”
These are follow-up comments after theFinal Fantasy XIVThe 7th 14-hour Broadcast two weeks ago, where YoshiP talked aboutFF16and its voice acting. Back then, since he stated the English dub was nearly over, I thought he implied that the Japanese dub was already recorded. Since the Japanese dub is usually the first one recorded with Japanese games. Turns out it wasn’t the case, and they’ll get to it soon.
Overall, this is a similar situation to what Kojima Productions did withDeath Stranding. The game was first dubbed in English, with its international actors and actresses simultaneously doing the characters' motion capture. And then the seiyuu dubbed it in Japanese.
More on WasyaganaTV,Final Fantasy XVI
WasyaganaTV was launched in April 2020 by our Japanese peers at 4Gamer and freelance journalist Mafia Kajita (who mainly works for 4Gamer). Mafia Kajita is a longtime friend of Yuichi Nakamura, and they most notably used to hostStar Ocean’s radio show. I already talked about Wasyagana in the past whenPop Team Epic’s Bkub first appeared on the show.
Final Fantasy XVIis scheduled to launch on PS5 and has no release date estimate yet. The game will possibly release on Xbox and PC later on, as it’s implied to be atimed PS5 exclusive.
