Final Fantasy 16 Won’t Have American Accents Because of Its Medieval Europe Setting

Good news! Final Fantasy 16 setting and accents will match, ensuring that players don’t complain about immersion, or lack thereof, when they hear American accents while running around in fantasy medieval Europe. Square Enix’s Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that the upcoming game will only feature British accents.

“Medieval fantasy = Europe,” says Yoshida

Speaking to Dengeki Online (translation via Twitter user aitaikimochi), Yoshida said that he wanted to avoid getting complaints from American players who will inevitably question why they’re hearing similar accents if the game is set in fantasy Europe. Square Enix went the extra mile to ensure that every accent was British.

I think what we equate as ‘Medieval fantasy = Europe’ would probably be best represented by The Lord of the Rings. We made sure not to include any American accents. We decided to do this to prevent Americans from playing the game and getting mad by saying something like, ‘I was looking forward to playing a game set in fantasy medieval Europe, but why are they speaking American English!?’ To prevent this, we made sure all the dialogue was recorded using British English.

Yoshida added that Final Fantasy 16 will be the first PS5-only game that tells a full-fledged story set within fantasy medieval Europe. So, you know, the pressure is on to set an example…

In other news, it looks like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is all set to join PS Plus, and FromSoftware has confirmed that it’s working on several games and one of them is about to finish development.