What's Happening?
Hollow Knight: Silksong, a highly anticipated Metroidvania game, has been released on Steam and quickly climbed the sales charts, achieving a peak of over 550,000 concurrent players. However, the game is facing significant backlash from Chinese-language users due to poor translation quality. The head of marketing, Matthew Griffin, acknowledged the issue and promised improvements. The translation has been criticized for turning the game's evocative writing into awkward prose, affecting the game's storytelling and world-building. The game currently holds a low rating in the simplified Chinese category, but Valve's recent changes to segment reviews by language have prevented this from affecting the game's global perception.
Why It's Important?
The review bombing highlights the critical role of localization in the global gaming industry, especially for markets like China, which now represents the largest group of users on Steam. Poor translations can limit a game's success in specific regions, impacting sales and player engagement. The incident underscores the need for thorough quality checks in localization processes to ensure that the original intent and quality of the game are preserved across different languages. This situation also reflects the growing influence of Chinese gamers in shaping the success of international game releases.
What's Next?
Team Cherry, the developer of Hollow Knight: Silksong, is expected to address the translation issues promptly to restore confidence among Chinese players. The company will likely work closely with localization experts to improve the quality of the translation. As the largest user group on Steam, Chinese players' feedback will be crucial in guiding these improvements. The resolution of this issue could set a precedent for how game developers handle localization challenges in the future.
