Square Enix recently shared details on the voice actors behind the main characters in the upcoming video game Final Fantasy XVI particularly the younger brother Joshua Rosfield.
Final Fantasy XVI Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox was recently interviewed by Game Informer talking about the voice actors who they hired for the roles of Joshua and Clive Rosfield. The latter is the main protagonist of the game while the former is the younger brother who becomes berserk in the game, based on the trailers.
Final Fantasy XVI Joshua’s Voice Actor Sound Familiar
Listening to the voice of Joshua, some fans might be quick to recognize him right away. It turns out they were right because Koji revealed that the young boy behind that voice is none other than Logan Hannan, the voice actor for Hugo de Rune from another popular title, Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale series.
Koji revealed that it was actually Hannan’s performance in his role as Hugo that hired him to voice Joshua in Final Fantasy XVI.
Original Plan Failed After Actor’s Voice Matured
At first, the team chose an actor that was very close to puberty to take on the role of both motion capture and voice. Since motion capture took a lot of time, it also meant that his voice, unfortunately, matured which meant he could not record all of his lines in one go. He could no longer sound like an 8-year-old. He sounded like a 15-year-old and Koji realized this was not going to work.
“And it was at this time that I had played enough of A Plague Tale that I thought, ‘Okay, rather than doing another set of auditions, I know exactly who we want. I played this game and he was great in it. Let’s go with [Hannan] from A Plague Tale,’” Koji says. “That ended up working out.”
Hannan’s Performance Landed Him the Role
Koji revealed that they chose Hannan for his performance in the A Plague Tale series since this is what the developer team Creative Business Unit III needed in Joshua.
“When we got the scripts, it was like ‘Okay, we’re going to have this very, very intense scene with a very, very young character,’” Koji revealed. “We knew having a young kid be there and be happy, we had to put him through literal hell. Because the focus is to make this as real as possible, we didn’t want to go the route of hiring an adult actor and have them do a child’s voice because unless you get someone who’s really, really good at that, they can end up sounding fake.”
English Dubs Are So Good
It turns out that Hannan’s voice really fits Joshua’s character well. As a big critic of voice acting, especially in English, this would be the very first time in a long time that I would play the whole game in English dubs because it really fits well. Good job, localization team!
Final Fantasy XVI launches on June 22, 2023 exclusively on PS5.
