Ukrainian Localization: Winter 2025 (#88)

Sunshine after snowfall,
Rain pittering outside the window,
Some may curse the spring’s folly,
Yet it won’t slow us in our work.

Greetings, friends! May the spring rain wash away the filth from our land, and may the sun shine on Ukraine’s victory. The work on Ukrainian localization continues, no matter the difficulties. And if you thought SBT Localization was in a deep winter sleep, that is not the case. We had plenty of work, but some results will only be apparent later on, as every game or book has to go through several stages—and translation is only one of them!— before it arrives to the happy customer.

So, what was SBT Localization up to during winter and how much more Ukrainian did the universes become?

KINGDOM COME DELIVERANCE 2

February saw the release of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 with Ukrainian language on release. We were extremely happy to work on it together with RiotLoc. And there was a lot of work, as according to the developers from Warhorse, the game has more than 2.2 million words. That is twice the size of the previous installment with all of its expansions! Despite not being cheap, the game was a huge success and became the most profitable game on Steam in its release month.

Yura Dragon had a stream with a guest from the RiotLoc’s Ukrainian team, where she revealed some fun facts and challenges of KCD2 localization process. The video is going up on our YouTube channel in a bit.

SAVAGE WORLDS CORE RULES

We’ll see Savage Worlds Core Rules in Ukrainian soon, according to the Geekach publishing house. There are some snags with the printing. However, the digital version is available now.

CYBERPUNK RED. JUMPSTART KIT

Also, the pre-order for the Cyberpunk RED tabletop role-playing game Starter Kit has started. It includes a core rules booklet, an adventure book, character sheets, cardboard standees, maps, and dice. The digital version is available for free for anyone who made their pre-order.

PLANESCAPE TORMENT

The volunteer translation of Planescape: Torment is in its final stages. Another million-word project is almost ready. Considering, that Beamdog supports their old games less and less these days (we are still waiting for the official Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition patch), we will try to make a temporary Ukrainian language mod, so we can play this classic RPG in our own language.

Speaking about Baldur’s Gate 2, we came back to it recently somewhat, as there were changes to the original text and some additional strings, spells descriptions, mostly. We’d like to remind you that an unofficial Ukrainian language mod exists while you await the official patch from the developers.

OTHER ACTIVITY

In December, Andriy Yatsechko was invited by the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy of Verkhovna Rada to speak on behalf of SBT Localization in the “Language is relevant. Challenges and tasks for the state language policy” roundtable.

Bohdana Vozniuk visited Games Gathering Kyiv 2024 as well.

In December and February, Sofiia Shul conducted lectures on video games translation. A closed one for the Bila Tserkva National University students, and an open one for The Department of Theory and Practice of English Translation of the Taras Shevchenko Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology of Kyiv National University. The lecturer shared some experiences, some fun facts, and some practical advices. After, the attendees had many questions about the translation process and the difficulties of adding an official Ukrainian localization to a game. We are incredibly glad that every year the number of people, interested in Ukrainian localization, grows.

In January and February, the students from Karazin Kharkiv National University as well as the Alfred Nobel University had their internship with SBT Localization. They gained some valuable experience, for example, learned how to work with placeholders and other technical elements, got introduced to the Crowdin translation platform, also improved their skills in translating interactive content and terminology adaptation.

HALL OF FAME

A huge thanks on behalf of SBT Localization to the most active members during December, January, and February:

• Marharyta Pylypchuk
• Pavlo Kuliamin
• Alina Farafonova
• Yurii Myklashchuk
• Vladyslav Kravchenko
• Olena Androsiuk
• Anna Tsvira
• Rostyslav Fedorko
• Tetiana Khvastova
• Dmytro Holovchenko
• Yura Dragon
• Ivan Yankovyi
• Yanis Verminko
• Sofia Shul
• Anna Chyrva
• Yurii Bisyk
• Oleksii Ivanov
• Bohdana Vozniuk
• Olia Khmelnytska
• Serhii Olendarenko
• Tetiana Cherednychok
• Yehor Vlasov
• Maria Polishchuk
• Yevhenia Babchynetska

JOIN US

SBT Localization is always happy to see new talented, enthusiastic people, who want to take part in localizing gaming worlds. Visit our Vacancies page, and join us.

If you’re too busy for this, but still care about having Ukrainian available in your games, you can help us in one of these ways:

1) become our patron on Patreon;

2) support via Monobank.

GRATITUDES

We sincerely thank everyone who supported SBT Localization in December, January, and February on Patreon and via Monobank. To you and your families, we wish good health, safe skies, success, and wealth!

$100

$50

$25 / UAH 1000

$20

UAH 500 / $10

UAH 300

UAH 200 / $5

UAH 100 / $2

MilvusUA, Andrii Danyliuk, Олександр Баєнко, an unknown benefactor, No_Name, Anastasiya Zhyshchynska, Dinadin Cross, Dmytro Biletskyi, Easy Sugar, ktv, Marko Savchuk, MC Augstkalns, Oleksandr Lukianov, Oleksii Ivanov, Pavlo D., Ruslan Vyshnevskiy, tsunecko, Yaroslav, Yevhenii Shevchuk, Андрій Хамуляк, Влад Кладко, Відлуння Епохи, Віталій Касянчук, Михайло Коноваленко, Олександр Коробчук, Олександр Мамонов, Максим Агарков.

UAH 50 / $1

Олексій Рудий, Wiktor Kor, Andrii, Andrii Stepovanyi, boguslav Clairvoyant Anser, Dmytro Kyrychuk, Eugene Zabolotniy, Falcon, Jarlaxle Baenre, Oleksii Shevchenko, Roman Telpiz, SaibankanKazuma, sNb, Vasyl Stokolosa, Vladyslav Stepaniuk, Костянтин Кебкал, Максим Остапенко, Avantgarde, Olexandr C, Андрій Гончаров, Андрій Веселовський.

SPECIAL THANKS FOR SUPPORT TO THE CROWDIN TEAM!

UKRAINIZATION OF THE UNIVERSE MARCHES ON!

March 23, 2025

Created by Sofia Shul

Translated by Yurii Bisyk