Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata had a few details to share on the release date of the game in an interview featured in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine. [Thanks, Hachima.]

During the interview, Tabata said that if it were only the Japanese version, it wouldn’t have taken as long, but since they went with a global release, they weren’t able to compress the development period with the time it took for localization; however, he added that the release date is something they will protect.

Famitsu asked about the reason why they decided to release the game on September 30, 2016.

“I wasn’t the director at first, but when I was formally entrusted with the duty (in December 2013), ‘September 30, 2016 is when we’ll release it,’ was the first thing that was decided,” shared Tabata.

He added “[the date] was not something that was randomly decided, but it was something we saw when considering the time and cost for the amount of resources we had.”

The magazine report also notes that Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV’s lip-sync is done in English. The English version of the movie will have different voice actors from the game, but it still remains unknown for the Japanese version.

Final Fantasy XV will release worldwide on September 30, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.