In the latest issue of Famitsu magazine due out in Japan on Thursday, Hajime Tabata noted the first decision he made upon becoming director of Final Fantasy XV was nailing down the game’s release date. This happened back in December 2013 – about six months following the game’s re-branding at E3 away from Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

He continued by saying that the release date “was not something that randomly was decided, but it was something we saw when considering the time and cost for the amount of resources we had.”

So why have things taken so long? Tabata explained development wouldn’t have been so lengthy if they were only working on the Japanese version. Because they decided to take on a worldwide release, however, they weren’t able to reduce development time due to things like localization. Despite these ambitions, the release date is something they’ll continue to protect.

The magazine also reports the upcoming CGI movie Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV was animated to sync with the English voice cast. The English version of the movie features famous talents such as Sean Bean, Aaron Paul and Lena Headey – who won’t be reprising their roles in the actual game. Square Enix has also tapped Western talents to model and motion capture for the film, including British actor Jon Campling, who revealed his involvement last week.

Final Fantasy XV is due out for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 30th worldwide. For more updates on the game check out our on-going coverage here.

Via: Hachima, Siliconera.