Final Fantasy 16's English Cast Will Speak with British English Accents, Not American

I guess I’ll be playing in Japanese

I always feel that any fantasy RPGs with American accented characters just doesn't feel right, unless their name is Geralt. It's why I loved FFXII so much.

Edit* The Dragon Quest series is brilliant for regional English accented voice overs. Can't believe I forgot about those games.

I feel like larger JRPGs have really good English voice acting, I've only ever played FF games in English. I know it sounds blasphemous, but I played Persona 5 in English, the voice casting was just too good to ignore, even though the game is set in Tokyo. I guess context really matters whether I choose English or Japanese voices. If the game has a real world setting such as Ghost of Tsushima or Yakuza I go with Japanese, but since Persona 5 has fantasy elements I can go either way with that game. For the case of something like the Atelier series I go with Japanese because I know some of the games don't have English, so I might as well play the whole series in Japanese. There's also games like A Plague Tale where even though the primary language the developers made the game for was English, but I will choose the country setting being French, Metro series is also great to play in Russian.

Fair enough. There were no American accents in medieval times (there were also no British accents, or English language as it is now, but the line has to be drawn somewhere I suppose).

I’ll never be convinced any JRPG should be played in English. Not that the English voices aren’t good, they try, but original Japanese audio is always world’s better.

‘The decision was made to prevent American players from getting angry’
I must admit I found it funny 😅
(I’m guessing it’s the translation that makes it sound funny)

Even though I'm fluent in Japanese, I still usually prefer the English tracks when I play RPGs. I mainly only play in Japanese to avoid strong language like frequent F-bombs (which I'm praying aren't featured here). Japanese doesn't technically have curse words the way we do.

Anyway, VERY excited for this game.

My favourite voice cast to this day for FF is XII. Hope XVI recaptures some of that magic.

I don't mind aslong as it's not as bad as xenoblade chronicles 2's voice acting

Medieval english wouldn't even understand modern english. FFXIV had some weird old english words I didn't understand so my guess is it will be similar to that. Yoshida if you really wanna capture the medieval aesthetic please add latin and koine greek translations🙏

I always play JRPG in Japanese if possible, I dont normally use English voice acting, unless it's a western game.

Awesome. Now it's Reyn time!

Same. For the longest time it seemed the western actors didn't care about what they were doing when translating. The tone and inflections were all wrong and would ruin an otherwise amazing cutscene or conversation. Most notably female actors in games and anime. This is improved greatly over the years but I still watch or play in the language of the country of origin.

As long as its not as bad as watchdogs legion lol. I think the Americans will struggle with the old English accent so I think this is hilarious, going by experience as a few American friends I have struggle to understand what I'm saying 😅

The script was written in Japanese and had the motion capture performed in British English.
The director's intended version is probably to play the game with Japanese text and English audio. With cutscenes in British English with Japanese subtitles.

It reminds me of how the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was written in English but filmed in Mandarin Chinese. The director's intention for the film is for it to be watched in Mandarin with English subtitles.

Hasn't this been obvious from all of the trailers?

Cool to see that they're going for historical accuracy in a game where you summon giant beasts as big as mountains to blast each other with elemental powers.

As an American I'm furious. This game isn't in Europe so they should've invented entirely new accents that don't exist in our world. Way to kill the immersion!

@ATaco The real reason we won two world wars!

As long as the voices fit the characters and themes, I am all for it.

English accent. Or are they incorporating Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish accents too?

Please be good.

I wonder if Final Fantasy would ever go the route of doing a game inspired by other cultures. I'm sure a large part of tge fanbase would get mad if they decided to make a game in the vein of Afro-fantasy, but personally I think it could be quite cool.

I heard the reason people use British accents in historical and fantasy films is so that American audiences don't have to hear an accent that sounds familiar and everyday them. It doesn't matter that it's inaccurate - it's the distance from their own accents which is important.

And British accents were an easy go to for English speaking actors, and now it's been going on for so long that we're all used to it and no-one questions why Julius Caesar has a British accent.

@invictus4000 Do you find translated games to drop in Fbombs even when they're not in the original Japanese version?

Clive Warren and Rebecca Demornay

@Abeedo it would be a terrible idea for the very reason you just stated and i rather it not happen . we deal with enough already , i don’t wanna hear gamer-gaters running their mouths about ***** we had no say in , but rather the decision of these game developers themselves to appropriate without consent .

British voice acting can be good. But would be annoying if they all were talking proper British

Same reason Game of Thrones used British/European accents and actors.

US accents just don't work in medieval fantasy, fact!

They'll almost certainly be using the same casting company that manages FFXIV VAs, I wouldn't be surprised to hear some of the Scions voicing Valesthea's denizens.

@riceNpea hopefully a mix for variety in my opinion. Word of advice never call an Irishman British. They're not. N.ireland is in the uk but it is not a part of britian, hence the name United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland

@CutchuSlow you mean pro-er Bri-ish? 😁

@Abeedo Ehh... as much as I'd love to have an Afro-fantasy our own western culture rarely even gets Afro representation correct without resorting to stereotypes and tropes. Maybe if it's handled like Afro Samurai & Yasuke.

@CutchuSlow what do mean by 'proper british' cracks knuckles in staffordshire
I'll assume you mean queens English or cockney in which case yes that would be very annoying

Good. Just sounds stupid otherwise.

Good ,it annoys me when a texan is swinging a broadsword.

@ATaco we use to have those in the 80s,but Maggie introduced the summon tax and we stopped using them.

@WadeIsInsane That is true. It's hard to imagine Square making a game in that style that doesn't feel tone deaf.

@nomither6 I hear that, but I'd also like to say that a lot of the biggest criticisers of this new FF are talking badly about having another game in a medieval fantasy aesthetic. Taking fantasy from other cultures just gives a way to change things up while making things feel unique. Sure I think there'd be people complaining, but if it's done well the results will speak for themselves.

It's fine as no matter what they do people will find something to complain about.

@Yozora146_ Yes, those 2 would be annoying. But I wouldn't mind if 1 or 2 people spoke in queens English, as long as they're Royalty. Why is it called queens English? I always called it proper English or posh. Lol. Can't have cockney, no way. It would sound more real to me, if actors used their native accent.

Don't really care. it's a JRPG so Japanese it is for me. Good that people that like dubs will enjoy this I guess, at least it won't sound like a bunch of constipated dudes speaking which is usually what happens when they dub rpgs, never understood why.

It's fantasy land not Europe. You can have any accent you please. That being said the dubbing for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is atrocious and if that's similar to what FF 16 will sound like I'm even more pleased that we get Japanese language options. Always nice to be able to turn off the janitors.

😄 hahaha.ok.word up son

Seems to me that Yoshida may have also been trying to separate FF16 from the prior FF15. FF15 was a modern setting and 3 of the bros (Noct, Prompto, and Gladio) had American accents, while my boy Iggy was the only British lad.

I’m in the shunned FF corner that actually really enjoyed FF15. Not so much as a Final Fantasy game, but as a road-trip with friends, with hints of Final Fantasy flavor mixed in.

@jrt87 I'm a Japanese language forever person. Grew up watching anime in Japanese so it's ingrained. That being said I would never tell someone they didn't truly experience something if they used English voice overs as long as the translation is accurate. We have options for a reason which is great.

The only issue I have with English dubbing is when they change the very nature of what's being said. That can ruin a game. See Working Designs translations for more.

Ged day mate!! Put another shrimp on the barbi!!

@ShadowofSparta You have yet to see the greatest english dubbing ever and that is Ghost stories, no but really there are some pretty incredible english dubbing that even the creators prefer like Cowboy Bebop. I usually prefer English alot of the time but when it comes to Yakuza games I prefer Japanese 100% of the time due to how either terrible the voice acting is or how the voice never sounds right for the character like Higashi.

@Nepp67 Cowboy Bepop was great to be fair. I think my experience has been tainted by some bad anime. What always annoys me about English dubbing is the bit they lose in translation. Like how “NANI?!!!” sounds a lot better than “Whaaaaat?!!!”, because there’s a certain Japanese intonation that doesn’t quite translate. If that makes sense.

"To avoid upsetting Americans, we're making absolutely sure to have no Americans cast" Oooookayy....

I mean I agree, I do expect medieval should not be American sounding, that's just weird, it's an entirely modern dialect. But the reasoning here is just hilarious.

@ATaco Historical fiction is a big draw for me, like that game that covered the giant enemy crabs of Japan's medieval past.

@Toypop It's just Japan's idea of "cool dudes". In the West it looks like "dudes that look like 13 year old girls." In Japan it's seen more as "totally rockstar." To be fair....Keith Richards and lots of other Brit rockers in the day kinda always had that 13 year old girl aesthetic going, which is probably where they got the idea. Bowie defined the whole androgynous thing on purpose. So I think the whole effeminate/androgynous = masculine rockstar thing is probably more of a 70's Western rock thing that Japan adapted late to the party and then amped up more than a totally Japanese idea. Japanese rock/pop stars definitely maintain that look.

always nice to see european inspired settings populated by people who fit within that context. final fantasy xii was the best voice work s-e has ever done. british voice direction usually blows its western counterparts out of the water for whatever reason.

Perfect, as it should.

@ShadowofSparta

I agree with that. I’m 90% sub with anime and Japanese games.

But there are a handful of dubs that I actually prefer over the sub version. Ghost in the Shell 2 comes to mind. To me the English VA for Batou is the definitive voice of that character. Same goes for Togusa. I also prefer the dubs of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo over the subs.

Gundam Unicorn had a surprisingly good dub. Gundam has historically awful dubs (I will never forget the train wreck that is the dub of Zeta Gundam) so it was a nice surprise to see they actually did some decent casting with Unicorn. It’s not quite as good as the JP sub, but it’s really close.

Also can’t forget about Princess Mononoke. That dub is probably the best English dub ever made. They used extremely high caliber well known actors (like Billy Bob Thornton) and they spared no expense on the recording room. It’s insanely good. I think the JP fits the movie better overall, but I won’t ever detract for the effort they made with the dub.

On the video game side there are some good dubs. Dragon Quest XI has a really good dub, as does Shin Megami Tensei V. And Final Fantasy VII Remake absolutely rocks with its dub. Especially Aerith and Barrett’s voice actors. In every scene you can tell they poured their hearts and souls into those two characters.

@ShadowofSparta Have to agree, it's way too weeb and just doesn't vibe with english voices. I used to play these in english when I was younger but ever since I switched to japanese, I can't go back.

Good. Never liked the American English and accent in a majority of video games.

@nicc83 Oh, absolutely. From my experience I would say 90% of the F-bombs are not justified from the Japanese track at all.