News about Final Fantasy XVI has been rather sparse since it was originally announced almost a year ago, with developer Square Enix adopting a policy of fewer, more meaningful information drops in the leadup to the game’s release. That hasn’t done much to deter producer Naoki Yoshida, though, who has been releasing the occasional status update on the development progress of the game.

As reported by Twitter user @aitaikimochi, Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida spoke briefly about the game during today’s “Washa ga na TV Collab” livestream. During the stream, Yoshi-P revealed that the team went in reverse of what’s normally done and recorded English voiceovers first. This was apparently done because the motion capture acting for the game took place with all English-speaking actors, and as such the English recording work was done as well in order to avoid having to adjust facial animations further down the line.

Yoshi-P talked very briefly about FF16 in today’s “Washa ga na TV Collab” livestream:

-English recording came first
-English voice acting was done with full facial motion capture for almost each scene
-English recording is the furthest, Japanese voice recording is getting there. pic.twitter.com/BzghAMobCk

— ☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) July 25, 2021

Although every video game’s timeline is different, the fact that the voiceover work is so far along speaks volumes to how close the game is to releasing. While fans will undoubtedly still be waiting a while, Final Fantasy XVI will likely be released by the end of next year, which is a drastic improvement over the typical time it takes for Square Enix to release a game after it’s been officially announced.

Final Fantasy XVI is currently in development for PS5.

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