Horizon Zero Dawn and the challenges of localizing sci-fi

Post date: Mar 29, 2017 10:17:57 PM

Gustavo Petró and Pablo Miyazawa peel on the surface of one of the most challenging things to do in localization in this video from IGN Brazil (at minute 5:00).

When you have to localize, transcreate and culturalize contexts, objects, notions, faiths, etc, an endless stream of things that only exist in the alternate reality create by a videogame, you have to think not only from a perception point of view, but also you have to really imerse yourself into that environment, so you can create your own framework of internal logic, that sometimes even the producers of the game miss.

You wouldn't want to have someone saying the equivalent of "Curiosity killed the cat" in an universe where there are no cats, nor any historical references to cats, now would you?