Square Enix has been silent for quite a while on this topic, but those that love Japanese voice acting now have a reason to rejoice, as the publisher just confirmed that an option to change the language of the speech in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will be available in the open beta.

The announcement comes two days after the development team mentioned that voice acting for cutscenes will be implemented in the open beta of the game.

Upon logging into the game the language of the subtitles will follow the launcher setting, but there will be a menu option in game that will allow players to freely swap the language of the voice acting between Japanese, English, French and German.

In addition to this we learn that the development team is working on implementing an option (that will also be implemented in open beta) to let our character move his or her lips when we’re typing in /say or other chat channels. Lip movement will also be implemented for certain emotes.

Finally, Square Enix asked players to submit questions for the Letter from the Producer Live VIII, that will very appropriately happen on August the 8th (8th livestream happening on 8/8…get the pun?) at 5 AM PDT. You can post them here or on Twitter during the livestream itself mentioning @FF_XIV_EN and using tha hashtag #XIVLive.

Considering the fact that the the game has a star-spangled Japanese cast, deciding between Japanese and English voice acting is going to be a dilemma for many. While you wait for the open beta, you can check out my hands-on preview of the closed beta, nicely decorated with a whopping 723 screenshots.