Some people who worked on translating Baldur’s Gate 3 into Brazilian Portuguese for several years ended up missing from the game’s credits. However, Larian Studios has managed to quickly resolve the issue and get the localization firm to fix it.
What happened?
- Shortly after the global launch of Baldur’s Gate 3, Marc Eybert-Guillon, director of localization studio From the Void, noted on Twitter that the game’s credits listed a small portion of staff who worked on its Brazilian Portuguese translation.
- In fact, it only included executives and leads from Altagram, a firm that provides game companies with localization services in more than 50 languages.
- “Let’s be clear: this practice is always unethical, but here, like with Persona before, it’s downright evil,” Eybert-Guillon said.
- It is worth noting that localizing a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 is a challenging task. For example, a member of the Spanish team noted that “it took us almost 4 years and that the final amount of text is over 2.5 million words.”
Translators for @baldursgate3 worked for 𝟯 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 translating more than 𝟭 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 and @Altagram_Group only credited their execs & leads.
Let’s be clear: this practice is always unethical, but here, like with Persona before, it’s downright 𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗟. https://t.co/ux0nZLm5wg
— Marc E.G. ☆⇾ 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘮 (@MittoVac) August 9, 2023
How did Larian Studios react to the news?
- Eybert-Guillon’s post went viral, making Larian pay attention to the problem and quickly respond.
- In a statement to Eurogamer, the company said it reached out to Altagram and “compelled them to fix this”, adding that as soon as it was made aware, it took steps with the localization firm to “remedy this immediately.”
- The Baldur’s Gate 3 developer promised to fix credits in the upcoming Patch 1, but it looks like the names of Brazilian Portuguese translators have already been added to the game.
- On August 15, Eybert-Guillon shared a screenshot of the updated credits, which now include not only execs. We at GWO also checked the credits and can confirm that common translation staff are currently on the list (see the image below).
- Last week, Altagram itself issued a public statement: “We take full responsibility for the omission of our freelancers’ names and apologize for the effects that it had. We are learning from this experiencing and are reviewing the failures of our internal processes regarding credits.”
- The company also shared a list of steps it is now planning to take, including the creation of its Internal Crediting Committee that will oversee the crediting process and ensure a “standardized and fair approach across all our projects.”
- Larian then thanked Altagram for the “swift action” and for working with the studio to “make this right.”
(2/2) https://t.co/4QmyujD5tu pic.twitter.com/FFmzQ0801y
— Altagram (@Altagram_Group) August 10, 2023
Launched on August 3, Baldur’s Gate 3 is showing some really impressive numbers, peaking at over 875k concurrent players on Steam — second only to Hogwarts Legacy this year. The game also received acclaim from players and critics, currently holding an average score of 97 on Metacritic (based on 36 reviews).