Polygon, along with some other gaming organizations such as GameXplain, were fortunate enough to get early access to the Special Edition of Fire Emblem Fates. This release was limited, and came with a cartridge containing all three versions of the game (Birthright, Conquest and Revelation), as well as a very beautiful cloth carrying pouch sized for a New 3DSXL and a hardcover art-book with 80+ pages of reference material in Japanese, with translation notes.

One thing that has many fans frustrated with, however, is the lack of Dual Audio being evident with the game’s menu options. Dual Audio refers to the inclusion of the original Japanese voice work, as well as the English voicing.

Fans’ patience hit the floor when Polygon streamed Fire Emblem Fates and noted the game’s lack of a second audio option, especially since this was a noticeable feature within the previous Fire Emblem installment, Fire Emblem Awakening. 

Polygon has furthered things by announcing a confirmation from Nintendo, that the Japanese voices are not included in the releases of the game. No information was disclosed as to whether or not Nintendo will release the original Japanese voice work via DLC or otherwise. With a bit of speculation, there are a few things we can assume.

First, there may simply not have been enough room on the cartridge to economically include both sets of voice options. An anonymous but trusted source of information shared with us that 3DS cartridges are basically set up with three general sizes; 2GB, 4GB and 8GB. Considering the original game was roughly 1.8GB, including a second set of voices would no doubt increase the size of the game itself, requiring a more expensive investment to be made to account for the larger, 4GB, cartridge.

Availability of the larger cartridges comes at a cost, since all of these cartridges are imported overseas. It’s easy to assume that US production would have more 2GB cartridges on hand, rather than the most costly 4GB and 8GB. Between the increased cost of the technology itself and the import fees associated with the cartridges, Nintendo may not feel that the inclusion of dual audio is a worthwhile investment.

There are also the potential licensing issues involved with the voice actors (especially Aqua/Azura). Even if these potential licensing limitations were overcome, financial concerns would still have existed with regards to the larger cartridge costs. However, cartridge costs are not a concern for digital formats, such as DLC.

Of course, releasing the dual-audio version of the game via Nintendo’s eShop could be possible, but then there would be multiple versions of the game in circulation, and that means even more work for Nintendo as a whole. Licensing costs for voice actors and music in games can be highly expensive at times, acting as a primary factor in preventing dual audio releases. This occurs because the licenses for using these assets generally only cover the original region they were recorded for.

This could be realistically resolved via offering a DLC add-on (for a price or not, is up to Nintendo of course), which would include the Japanese voicing. However, Nintendo has declined to comment on this.

Ultimately, without confirmation, fans like us are left wishing and waiting.