CDProjektRed games have strong scripts. How do they localize?

[crawlkill]

I've played Witcher games in both English and German and found them to have, by the low standards of the industry, very solid scripts. Forget the actual story--just the words coming out of characters' mouths usually work really well, and I've never seen any of the madness Engrish typical of localized Japanese games. Does anyone know what language the games are originally written in? Does CDPR just have a writing staff hyperfluent in English who start their scripts there? Do they just hire really good teams to do the localization? Has anyone played the games in Polish and English or German both? Is Polish "the original," and is it even better there? Been curious about this since forever, not sure if CDPR has ever commented on it.

 

[Infinitron]

Storyfag

 

[DeepOcean]

I liked the brazilian version, brazillian Geralt sounds more like a tough and experienced warrior with a cynical humor edge than an annoying stoned douche like on the English version.

 

[Zeriel]

Since W2 they write the script in english, then localize, though apparently Polish has some extra stuff.

This was a reaction to W1, which was intensely criticized for Engrish and Kurwa!

 

[Grimwulf]

Russian Geralt is emotional.



Never played sequels, though.

 

[imweasel]

No idea if the game is actually written by Polish writers in Polish at CDPR or not.

But I heard that the Polish, German and English localizations (including voice overs) are the best, because these are the most important markets for CDPR.

 

[Metro]

It helps when you spend little money on gameplay -- that savings is passed along to translations.

 

[m_s0]

Since W2 they write the script in english, then localize, though apparently Polish has some extra stuff.

I'm not entirely convinced that is the case. The Polish version of TW2 doesn't read as a translation at all. Well, so far at least, since I've just started playing.

And I'm still not sure what the hell this is supposed to mean exactly considering the claims that the game was translated into Polish:

We have a native English speaker on the team, so while the game is being written by Polish writer(s) it's being implemented in the game in English.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=6559

Frankly, that sounds like the script was done in both Polish and English concurrently, and the rest is just pure PR bullshit ('no Engrish this time around, guys - we promise!').

 

[crawlkill]

I liked the brazilian version, brazillian Geralt sounds more like a tough and experienced warrior with a cynical humor edge than an annoying stoned douche like on the English version.

makes me think of Bioware localizations--to this day, I can only stand French Shepard. and Geralt and certainly an asshole.

but! I still hope to learn how the game was actually developed. Storyfag, apparently? tell us! I've never played a game as well-localized as any of the Witchers. I've never been so impressed.

 

[Ismaul]

As far as I remember, they re-did the English dialogues and voice work on The Witcher 1 for the Enhanced Edition, since the translation from Polish to English wasn't satisfactory (some dialogue was cut or badly localized).

 

[Konjad]

I've played Witcher games in both English and German and found them to have, by the low standards of the industry, very solid scripts. Forget the actual story--just the words coming out of characters' mouths usually work really well, and I've never seen any of the madness Engrish typical of localized Japanese games. Does anyone know what language the games are originally written in? Does CDPR just have a writing staff hyperfluent in English who start their scripts there? Do they just hire really good teams to do the localization? Has anyone played the games in Polish and English or German both? Is Polish "the original," and is it even better there? Been curious about this since forever, not sure if CDPR has ever commented on it.

CD Projekt has good translators because it was for a long time a Polish publisher and a game localization company in the Polish market. They did some really amazing localizations in the past (Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate etc. - games where you wouldn't even know they were translations if you didn't know anything about them). Of course apparently it only works English to Polish way, because Twitcher had a disasterous English localization.

Answering your question, Twitcher was written in Polish, then translated to English. Twitcher 2 and 3 (and I imagine their future games) are written in English, but the Polish localization is not only a translation - it's a full fledged localization, meaning it contains more stuff pertaining to Polish culture, some rewritten text, and in general feels rather like the original version. The Polish translation is as amazing as may CD-Projekt's translations of other games they publish in Poland.

 

[yes plz]

After the disaster of TW1's original translation they supposedly began to work on the English and Polish scripts "in parallel". Looking at the games' credits it seems they bumped up Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewiz from just translating to also helping to write for the game.

 

[m_s0]

After the disaster of TW1's original translation they supposedly began to work on the English and Polish scripts "in parallel".

Yeah, thought as much. Thanks for the link.

 

[naossano]

What were the flaws of TW1 english translation ?
I didn't have any problem playing it.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I heard if you take an English script and turn it upside down that will turn it into Polish.

 

[Seari]

In the original a lot of the conversations didn't make any sense, it was like they were using google translate.

 

[latexmonkeys]

I liked the brazilian version, brazillian Geralt sounds more like a tough and experienced warrior with a cynical humor edge than an annoying stoned douche like on the English version.

I think they were going for a Clint Eastwood, "man with no name" type of vibe in the English version.

 

[yes plz]

What were the flaws of TW1 english translation ?
I didn't have any problem playing it.

You might've played the Enhanced version only, then. Originally the game's translation was very truncated and bland, then they retranslated much of the game in the Enhanced Edition and even re-did a ton of the English voice acting. I think there might even be a thread on the Codex with the 1eyedking bitching about it.

 

[naossano]

Indeed, i played the last version of the game on GoG. Came late in the World of Vizima.

 

[Perkel]

Twitcher had a disasterous English localization.

Twitcher1 wasn't localized by CDPR. It was done by Atari which butchered script. Later in EE they improved it but it was still worse than PL version a lot.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

The thing that stood out the most in Twitcher 3 for me was that every single character in the game said 'me' instead 'my'. Me house, me mates, me wife. Is that some kind of special potato English? :D

 

[Infinitron]

The thing that stood out the most in Twitcher 3 for me was that every single character in the game said 'me' instead 'my'. Me house, me mates, me wife. Is that some kind of special potato English? :D

It's a pretty common lower class British speech pattern. Many medieval fantasy games use it.

The thing I've noticed about Witcher 3 dialogue is that Geralt rarely uses pronouns. Always "Must have gone somewhere", not "He must have gone somewhere".

 

[crawlkill]

The thing I've noticed about Witcher 3 dialogue is that Geralt rarely uses pronouns. Always "Must have gone somewhere", not "He must have gone somewhere".

I sort of love this. it's so...intentional? Geralt's personality might suck, but he does HAVE personality. it's my favorite thing when dialogue options show up that omit "I" from the front or whatever. (and in that little find-the-pan miniquest in the first area, when the old woman comments on Geralt talking to himself while in detective mode and how "only when I talk to MYself people say I'm going daft," perfection)

I never played the pre-rerelease version of Twitcher 1, so I dunno how bad the Atari butchery was. so they do localization in-house? not even snagging native speakers? I am infinitely impressed, apparently the Polish language curriculum needs to be brought to the world

 

[TedNugent]

I was just amazed that a Polish language game routinely uses puns in the English language version.

 

[crawlkill]

I was just amazed that a Polish language game routinely uses puns in the English language version.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about! It just seems incredible that there's such high, like, language fidelity.

 

[odrzut]

The thing I've noticed about Witcher 3 dialogue is that Geralt rarely uses pronouns. Always "Must have gone somewhere", not "He must have gone somewhere".

It's a Polish thing. In Polish pronouns are encoded in verbs' endings, you can additionaly use regular pronouns, but they are optional and people skip them 99% of the time. In Polish, the verb "gone" in "Must have gone somewhere" is different depending if it was "he","she","it","they". Even mixed groups "they" have different verb than strictly female "they".

Not skipping the pronouns make you sound too formal. And saying "I" makes you sound like a total egocentric. So people try to translate this to English and skip pronouns as well.