[Minor spoilers] Regarding accents...

This is about to get a little rambly and I apologize in advance.

I really loved hearing the return of Icelandic accents for Viis/Viera NPCs (and all but one of those voices were from actual Icelanders! Good work SE!), and the Ronso/Hrothgar having their own unique accents (I jokingly refer to them as "vampire accents" but I'm having trouble pinpointing the exact brand of Slavic they were going for tbh) was a nice touch as well.

On the other hand, it does sort of make the NPCs on the Azim Steppe feel like a missed opportunity, imo. And it's not that all the NPCs in Stormblood lacked authentic accents; Yotsuyu and Hien both had a noticeable, if faint, Japanese accent, most noticeably on certain specific words ("Doman" for example). I know it's not realistic to expect SE's English voice studio of choice to be able to pull in actors with every accent imaginable, but I do feel like it might have been a nice touch for immersion's sake. The usage of correctly-pronounced Mongolian terms was pretty great, though.

I also think it's a bit of a shame that despite the obvious French influence on Elezen names, there isn't really a whole lot of French influence reflected in their mode of speech. A lot of the pronunciations also aren't really accurate or consistent, Edmont and Haurchefant's names being good examples.

Anyway, overall I think the localization team has done a great job of working regional accents, dialects, and foreign-language vocabulary into the game. If anything I'd be curious to see more discussion of accents and native languages in future lore books. Maybe even something related to the way the written language of Norvrandt is so different from that in Eorzea.

Doman (Japanese) words are pronounced with the appropriate accent, but yeah, other than that everyone uses pretty much the same English accent. The Viis (Viera) of the First have Icelandic accents and the Ronso (Hrothgar) of the same have slight accents as well, but I was overall disappointed with the lack of variety of spoken accents on the First. 12,000 years of historical divergence and everyone still uses English accents. (The Azim Steppe felt like a loss to me as well.)

Text on the First is different, though.

Don't forget the very Scottish Fey Ul :)

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I was overall disappointed with the lack of variety of spoken accents on the First. 12,000 years of historical divergence and everyone still uses English accents.

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It would have actually been pretty funny if they'd opted to give the people of the First really exaggerated general American accents.

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Originally Posted by Wolffriend

Don't forget the very Scottish Fey Ul :)

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Ah yeah. All the pixies use Scottish accents, if I remember right.

Yeah, it sadly just boils down to cost probably. In an ideal world the localization team would probably cast as many appropriate accents as they could, but considering they have four total voice tracks to complete, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go with what's logistically and financially easier.

There's a lot of variety within the British accents alone, to be fair. It's great to me that such a mainstream game makes use of mostly British accents as of Heavensward and beyond. It's a nice change of pace when so many other games just use American accents.

Lack of diversity? As soon as you enter the first you're word-bombed by a drunk Irish lad who sends you off in a direction that lands you in front of an Icelandic bunny, who carts you off with the first generic speaker, who introduces you to full-on Scottish fairy - and it only goes on from there, eventually garnering copious amounts of Transylvanian Thundercats (not literally, but I have no idea what their accent is). Even Emet's VA voiced a separate NPC with a blatantly full-on British accent that made a Brit streamer laugh, contrary to the voice you're usually hearing from him. Even when reusing the same VA's, most of them provide often strikingly different voices/accents. There are some exceptions, such as Seto/Thordan, who had more softer dialogue but still the same unmistakable voice.

Whatever your opinion, the quality and variation of VA has been improving. They had some known voice-actors here and there, eg. it's very odd when you hear Urianger speaking in full-on Lorthemar (WoW) back in the old days, but it was never prioritized over the rest (probably due to budgeting). They're starting to splash out more and improve on it. As such, I'm more inclined to hope that it continues improving from here, rather than bewail what we got, which was a nice variable bag of different things.

Sometimes things just aren't feasible within budget. I'd wager it's a heck of a lot harder to find enough Mongolian actors in London for the entire Azim Steppe cast than it was to find a handful of Icelandic ones for the handful of Viera who are voiced.