Ukrainian players noticed the involvement of Russians in outsourcing and localization in the Czech game Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. What Ukrainian translators say

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a sequel to the RPG from Czech game designer Daniel Vavra, known for Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. The game takes place in the early 14th century Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Players take on the role of Henry (Indřich), the son of a blacksmith who seeks revenge.

The new game was released on February 4th and received high reviews from critics (89 points on OpenCritic and 88 on Metacritic) and players (91% positive reviews out of 8,400 on Steam). The day after its release, the developers announced that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 had sold 1 million copies.

About Owlcat Games

As Ukrainian players noticed, there was a place in the game’s credits for Owlcat Games, a Russian studio currently based in Cyprus.

«Well, I congratulate you on supporting Russians, who, like Armenians and Cypriots, in fact, still legally exist in the Russian Federation and pay taxes there. Every Ukrainian who bought KCD2 paid for his own fucking shaheed», — commented Ukrainian user X (Twitter) with the nickname vicesam.

Owlcat Games was founded in 2016 in Moscow by Oleg Shpilchevsky and Alexander Mishulin.

The studio’s first game, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, was partially funded through Kickstarter and released in 2018. It received criticism for its technical issues, and Owlcat spent months implementing patches and free updates to the game.

Owlcat Games was originally part of My.Games (the gaming division of Russia’s Mail.ru Group), but in December 2019, Owlcat raised $1 million from investment firm Gem Capital to develop Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The company’s third game, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, is due out in December 2023.

The credits of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 list 7 programmers and 2 managers from Owlcat Games, whom Warhorse Studios apparently hired as outsourcers to help with the game’s development. However, despite being headquartered in Cyprus and having an office in Armenia, Owlcat Games was actively hiring developers in Russia as early as 2023, AIN noted.

About Russian managers in the Ukrainian localization of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

The translation of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 into Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian was handled by Lithuanian Riotloc Studio, which describes itself as a «collective of localizers, netrantors, and writers.» The Ukrainian version of the game was also worked on by the localization union «Shlyakbytraf,» known for translating Baldurs Gate 3 and the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion «The Illusion of Freedom».

«We are honored to be part of the localization process of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Together with our colleagues at Riotloc Studio, we made every effort to ensure good and high-quality Ukrainianization. It was a titanic job and a real challenge. And for us, it is not only important professional experience, but also a real pride to become part of a cool team in such a large-scale project», — noted ShBT in X (Twitter).

However, Ukrainian players noted that the credits of the Ukrainian localization of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 listed managers from Russia.

«Can you tell us about these people? Are they Ukrainian?», — asked Ukrainian user X (Twitter) with the nickname CorwinEternal.

Among the employees of Riotloc Studio on LinkedIn, you can see many employees from Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In particular, the Ukrainian localization credits list managers Anna Kiselyova and Natalia Nesterova, who studied at Moscow State Linguistic University.

Nikolai Kalinin, who studied at Moscow State Technological University, is listed as a freelancer at Riotloc as a Localization Producer, and previously worked at the Russian My.Games. The fourth manager, Maria Junger, is also from Russia (St. Petersburg) — during the pandemic, she created the community «Translators in Quarantine.»

In addition to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, among the games in Riotloc’s portfolio on the company’s website, the following projects are notable:

• Tiny Glade with Ukrainian, Polish, Russian and other localizations;
• Alone in the Dark (Russian localization);
• Last Train Home (Russian localization);
• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (Polish and other localizations);
• Russian Atomic Heart (English, Ukrainian, Polish and other localizations);
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (Russian and other localizations);
• Sniper Elite 5 (Polish, Russian and other localizations);
• Russian Partisans 1941 (English localization)
• and many others.

 

 

 

Despite this, translators from Ukraine worked on the Ukrainian localization of KCD 2. dev.ua reached out to «Shlyakbytraf» for comment and received a detailed explanation regarding the situation with the translation of the game. We are quoting it in full.

Comment «Shlyakbitraf»

«Riotloc is a Lithuanian company with an international staff, as the company specializes in providing package translation services, including Russian, so the presence of Russians on the staff is understandable. Among other things, Riotloc has openly supported Ukraine since the beginning of the large-scale invasion and still supports it. Before starting our cooperation with them, all these moments and nuances of work were discussed at meetings with the management.

As for the aforementioned localization managers, they only handled the technical side of organizing the process at RiotLoc, which mainly consisted of working with the publisher and technically processing the localization files, so these people did not influence the translators' decisions in any way. The translation was performed exclusively by our team and the Ukrainian RiotLoc team, and the Ukrainian localization is 100% authentic, since only native Ukrainian speakers worked on the translation.

The work of the Ukrainian translation team was managed by Ukrainian editors. We would like to note that in terms of organizing the work, RiotLoc took all possible steps to ensure comfort and quality during work, and the Ukrainian team had all possible tools for translation, including the opportunity to consult directly with the developers and focus on translation solutions from the previous part, etc. All localization solutions were based on the original (Czech text and Czech voiceover), which also ensured authenticity.

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram

On the topic

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram

«Our localization was a show of solidarity and support.» After XDefiant, Ubisoft has no plans to translate new games into Ukrainian yet

On the topic

«Our localization was a show of solidarity and support.» After XDefiant, Ubisoft has no plans to translate new games into Ukrainian yet

«I wanted to make my contribution.» Interview with the author of the fan-made Ukrainian localization of Control, which is not inferior to the official translation of Alan Wake 2

On the topic

«I wanted to make my contribution.» Interview with the author of the fan-made Ukrainian localization of Control, which is not inferior to the official translation of Alan Wake 2

«Today’s zeitgeist for Ukraine is a struggle for identity, freedom, and one’s own voice.» German developers of 4X strategy game Songs of Silence to add Ukrainian localization

On the topic

«Today’s zeitgeist for Ukraine is a struggle for identity, freedom, and one’s own voice.» German developers of 4X strategy game Songs of Silence to add Ukrainian localization