2023 in Review

2023 is almost behind us and traditionally we’re summing up all of our achievements as well as the best and most notable moments of the year.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN UKRAINIAN LOCALIZATION

The start of the year was quite harsh. As you remember, frequent and long blackouts in the winter were a real test of everyone’s resolve. In addition some of our translators and editors are fighting for Ukraine at this very moment or live close to the active war zone. But despite all the hardships we kept and will keep working. And while our brave guardian angels protect Ukraine from russian invaders, we hold the line of the linguistic side and bring the Ukrainian language to as many game worlds as possible.

January

This month we just worked and were looking forward to oh so close releases.

February

Mal’opus published the book The Art of God of War.

Recommended articles:

God of War. Side by side with gods

March

Liftoff®: FPV Drone Racing received Ukrainian localization.

While the developers of Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition prepare to officially add Ukrainian localization, we’ve created a localization patch for this game.

April

This month several of our Ukrainian localization projects were finally released:

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

Tales of the Neon Sea

Ukrainization mod for the Darkest Dungeon

The Elder Scrolls: The Official Cookbook by Mal’opus Publishing

May

June

There were no releases in May and June, but we kept clanking on our keyboards like there was no tomorrow.

July

The Testament of Sherlock Holmes was released quite some years ago but in July 2023 this title finally received Ukrainian localization bringing joy to the hearts of its fans.

August

Before August we were very proud of two gigantic games in our portfolio: Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. However, Baldur’s Gate 3 made us twice as proud since its total word count equals both previous BGs added together! Eventually, Baldur’s Gate 3 took the most awards at the Game Awards 2023 ceremony, including the Game of the Year award. And we are happy beyond expression that Ukrainian players can experience this iconic gaming masterpiece in their native tongue.

Yet again we encourage you to contribute to the Ukrainian Wiki for Baldur’s Gate 3.

Recommended articles:

Baldur’s Gate 3: A legendary game with Ukrainian localization

Also this month Mal’opus published The Art and Making of Hogwarts Legacy.

Recommended articles:

The Art and Making of Hogwarts Legacy: The Magical Artbook

September

September was a Cyberpunk month. Cyberpunk 2077 received a huge Phantom Liberty expansion with the Ukrainian localization on release (a week earlier the base game also got Ukrainian localization made by our colleagues from Unlocteam).

Also this month Geekach published a booklet Cyberpunk RED. Easy Mode for the tabletop roleplaying game Cyberpunk RED. Shortly, core rules will also be available in Ukrainian.

October

Prologue, chapters 1 and 2 of the comic series Outsider are now available to download as a single file.

Everyone can finally enjoy the ukrainization mod for Banner Saga 3. For some time now it was available only to our benefactors.

November

Mal’opus published Fallout. The Vault Dweller’s Official Cookbook.

Recommended articles:

Fallout: Post-apocalyptic food and drinks

December

No new releases this month, but how does a Minecraft Official Cookbook sound to you? Intrigued? Then hurry up and preorder your copy from Mal’opus Publishing.

As you can see 2023 was full of fun stuff.

WORK IN PROGRESS

SBT Localization is always busy. In addition to the already mentioned games and books we also worked on several volunteer projects:

Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing — fully translated and proofread all of the additional text. Corrected some of the mistakes in the base text, but not all corrections were included in the latest update — we’ll have to wait for the next patches.

Atom RPG: Trudograd — 99% translated.

Planescape: Torment — 18% translated.

Other projects — no significant changes.

SOME NUMBERS

In 2023 (excluding December) we translated 590,000 words and proofread 100,000 words in volunteer projects alone. The most productive for volunteer projects was February (164,000 words) and the slowest was June (only 21,000 words). But that’s not all. Remember, how for the SBT Localization’s birthday we reported 7 million words in 11 years? Now after adding all of the projects that were released this year this number skyrocketed to the incredible 9,400,000 words!

During the year we held several giveaways to raise the funds for the charitable foundation Come Back Alive. In total, we were able to transfer UAH 470,000.

Usually in this segment we praise our most active translators and editors, but this year everyone did extremely well, with no exceptions. Everyone worked hard, worked a lot and literally paid with their sleep and rest time to bring Ukrainian localization to your favourite titles.

OUR APPRECIATIONS

We want to thank all of our benefactors who supported SBT Localization in 2023 on Patreon, Buy me a coffee, Donatello and in other ways, helping us to grow and pave the way to the Ukrainization of even more game universes.

$ 100

$ 50

$ 25

$ 20 / UAH 700

UAH 500 / $ 10

UAH 200 / $ 5

$ 3

Danylo Kondratiev

$ 2 / UAH 60

Queez, No_Name, Anastasiya Zhyshchynska, Andrii Rymar, Andrii Serbovets, Andriy Krasnychuk, Bogdan Tarasiuk, Bohdan Matviiv, Bohdanko, Dinadin Cross, Dmitry Biletskyi, Easy Sugar, Hanni, Ihor Tanchyn, Ivan Budzuliak, Ivan Komradov, ktv, Marko Savchuk, Mary Augstkalns, Michael Bodnar, Naloii, Oleksandr Lukianov, Oleksandra Makovii, Oleksii Ivanov, Pavlo, Roland_Deschain, Ruslan Vyshnevskiy, Serhii Pashchenko, TaPoK_v_NoSkE, Tom S, tsunecko, Volodymyr Dudai, Yevhenii Shevchuk, Yuri Demchan, Андрій Гончаров, Андрій Хамуляк, Відлуння Епохи, М’йору, Олександр Мамонов, Павло Донченко, Павло Жук, Петро Скорик, Юра Шрубянец, WalkWithWind, TimMak, Me as me, punk_asylum, Ігор Магера, Alex Kontsevych, Mancubus, vch_m, Andrii Malakhov, Alexander, Niko, Nazar Harbuziak, Olexander, Faks, Denys Korolenko, Pryvyd, Andrii Malakhov.

UAH 50/ $ 1

Alexander, amigo1995kot ., Andrii, Artem, boguslav Clairvoyant Anser, Denys Korolenko, Dmytro Kyrychuk, Exmolution, Ivan Nikiforyak, Jarlaxle Baenre, Mancubus.UA, Molodycia Palianycia, Nazar Kompaniiets, Oleksandr, ROMBOS GT, s0fko, sNb, Tulrays, Vasyl Stokolosa, Vitaliia Kubatska, Volodymyr Zhuk, Wiktor Kor, Анна Гавеля, Вячеслав Креминский, Олександр Пшенишнюк, Олександр Соловйов, Стаc Макар, Тимофій Сумка, Andriy Moroz, Rini, Yaroslav, TaraserBlack, Yevhen Zabolotnyi, Wiktor, Oleksii R, Bohdan, Jobitronik, justscribe, Myronenko Dmytro, Акентьєва Олена.

And of course, we’re extremely grateful to Crowdin. The best platform for the best translations! And it’s Ukrainian, by the way!

We wholeheartedly thank you for your support and wish you and your families health, peace, success and prosperity!

So that’s it for this review. We hope everything bad will stay in 2023 and wish you the most joyous and positive new year. May it be the year of Ukraine’s victory.

Happy New Year!

Sofia Shul

Translated by Pavlo Kuliamin, Yurii Bisyk

December 30, 2023