Challenge/Task

A leading mobile game developer in China was looking for an expert linguistic solutions partner for multilingual subtitling into French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish and Turkish to localize their Mobile-AFK-RPG (Away-From-Keyboard Role-Playing Game).

As theirs is also a live service game, meaning a continuous stream of new content is indefinitely being integrated into it, they needed their partner to remain responsive long after the initial localization to support with short notice subtitle translations of daily updates.

The nuance of this collaboration lay in the nature of AFKs. As their name implies, Away-From Keyboard games have a distinct feature: the game progresses even when the player is offline (and not playing). The player defines the strategy, leaves instructions for their heroes and the quest continues in their absence. Made for players who enjoy strategy but not so much the grind.

Linguistically this posed a twofold challenge, the localization needed to reflect both the strategic depth of the game and remain accessible for players who are jumping in and out at varying intervals of short to long breaks.

Approach/Solution

We were thrilled to bring our multilingual expertise and gaming chops to establish an ongoing partnership with the client. For the initial game localization, we set up dedicated teams of professional linguists/recreational gamers. For each language, a Lead Linguist was selected. To ensure consistency and integrity across the multilingual versions our Project Manager chose to manage the Lead Linguists as a unified squad.

This proved extremely effective and most importantly meant that any client preferences which developed throughout the course of the project were applied rapidly and adapted across the six languages—with the client having to express their desires only once. The language our linguists used was colorful and engaging across locales, to express the vibrant fantasy world our client had created.

In order to tackle the specific nuance of AFKs, we deployed some creative tweaks to our LQA strategy. For example, linguists would be explicitly asked to proofread or test portions of the game they had not worked on, and they would do so in a deliberately achronological manner—the linguistic equivalent of being spun around and seeing if you can orientate yourself.

We knew the likelihood of players remembering what happened the last time they logged into the game was low and not something we could rely on. Things needed to make sense out of context, otherwise, it was back to the drawing board.

Although this was a high-effort exercise that required tight management from our side, it was essential to ensuring players could step in and step out of the game seamlessly. Plug in, play…go away…come back, repeat.

Benefit for the client

AFK-RPGs are only profitable for their makers if players keep coming back to them. When a client’s ambition extends beyond their local market, localization plays a central role in reaching international players and crucially, retaining them.

The game must be easily accessible and (great) localization provides that accessibility; without it, non-native players would not have found their way to (and back to) the game. Choosing the right partner is key as localization can make or break a gamer’s UX (user experience) and thus boost or sabotage an international launch.

In Rheinschrift, our client found a partner who intimately understands their business and therefore can support their global expansion with linguistic solutions that attract and retain their target demographics. They consolidated their localization needs—hassle free—within one professional team, passionate about gaming and always eager to go the extra mile.