The Atlus published, Vanillaware developed tactical strategy/RPG title 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim will be getting a small delay. Originally scheduled for an early September release on PS4, Atlus had the choice to push back that launch by two weeks so it could have the English voice-over option ready for release on September 22, 2020.
While the English VO's won't be included on the disc for the physical version, there will be a day-one patch that adds them to the game. The reason for this is probably easy to guess: the COVID-19 pandemic. Atlus worked to localize the game since its release in Japan last year, but the stay at home restrictions imposed by the coronavirus meant recording any English voice-overs needed to happen remotely.
In a post over on the PlayStation Blog, Sega of America localization member Allie Doyon spoke about the difficulties of recording under these conditions. "It took some time to work everything out, but ultimately, we ended up recording the rest over video conference call," Doyon explained. "It's not as simple as just calling in and talking -we needed studio-quality audio recordings, a way for the audio engineers to work with said recordings on the spot and afterward, and a way for each actor to view the director's screenshared script at a readable size."
You can read the rest of the blog for more details on the process, but it seems to have presented a unique and difficult challenge for the team. No one wanted to abandon the English option, but it simply wasn't going to be ready for launch.
It's a little bit of a bummer that fans opting for the disc won't have a "complete" game with simply their boxed copy, but that's likely the only option Atlus had. With the launch date previously being early September, physical copies would have already been in the works. Atlus did the best with the cards it was dealt.
Honestly, if the worst thing is that the English VO disappears in the future when servers are shut down, then that's an okay sacrifice. It's more important that 13 Sentinels gets released and that fans can have a fully translated option instead of relying on an import.
Source: PlayStation Blog