Case Study
Stronghold: Warlords
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Localization to Japanese
Game Text and Voice Over
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Marketing
Japanese Language
Stronghold is a venerable PC real-time strategy game franchise dating all the way back to 2001.
When the BAFTA nominated developer Firefly Studios approached us with providing additional authenticity to their latest game Stronghold: Warlords, we decidedly and swiftly started the new project.
Focus on Asia
Unlike previous titles, Stronghold: Warlords is focused primarily in Asia with events drawing inspiration from historical events of what is now China, Vietnam and Japan.
Since a significant portion of the game involves Japan, historical accuracy and use of appropriate periodic Japanese were crucial. As such, we were tasked to translate the game text, dialogue text as well as NPC voice overs so that Japanese historical figures would be speaking in native language.
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Text Localization
Since its announcement during E3 in 2019, development of the game continued and we started localixation of in-game UI text and dialog starting November 2020 for the anticipated release date of January 9, 2021 (which was ultimately changed to March 9, 2021 due to additional time required to polish the multiplayer experience).
Base game had over 65,000 words to translate from English into Japanese. In addition, we provided translations of game-related materials such as Press Releases, Trailer captions, Community Posts and various Marketing Materials.
Japanese Voice Over
For authentic results, our team in Japan gathered local voice talents and recorded over 2,300 lines of dialog. As this game was finishing developement during the hayday of the COVID 19 pandemic, heightened quarantine measures forced voice-over recording studio to enforce strict crowd control and personal distance rule.
With only 1 sound engineer and 1 voice actor could be in the recording studio at the same time, which delayed completion of files, but we were able to deliver on time the required files thanks to hard work from every party involved.