Game Localization That Delivers
Don’t localize. Loekalize. – Trusted worldwide for English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Dutch, and more.Loekalization has been one of the main translation partners for Electronic Arts since 2009. From AAA blockbusters to award-winning indies, we help studios expand their reach and connect with players worldwide.
IGN Japan on Graveyard Keeper: "So natural and funny, that you wonder whether the original text was in Japanese."
Bulat Zaripov, Producer and Lead Game Designer at Lazy Bear Games (Graveyard Keeper 2): "Thanks a lot for the great quality localization! Everything was very professional, very good quality and on time! (Also, doing LQA was absolutely good idea, thank you for that too!)"
Charlie Oscar / Gremlins Inc.: "Our Japanese sales quadrupled after your localization into Japanese."
Cassidy Constantin & Christopher Bandura / Warning, No Pressure (Rolling Stock): "Without the expert knowledge of Loekalization there is no way in the world that we would have been able to support Simplified Chinese and Korean on such short notice in Rolling Stock. The communication is fast and professional and the process is easy and painless. We are looking forward to working with Loekalization again in the future."
We Keep Watching After Launch
Most localization ends when the files are delivered. Ours ends 30 days after your game is out. For those 30 days we read every Steam review and discussion in the languages we delivered. When a player says something about the text, you hear it from us first, with the exact string, the cause and what to do about it. If it traces back to us, we fix it at our own cost. This is part of every game localization project we take on, at no extra charge.
How that looked for Graveyard Keeper 2: on launch night we promised Lazy Bear Games we would be as vigilant as they were. In the first week we read more than a thousand reviews in Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Every remark about the text was traced to its exact string. What was ours was corrected the same day, and anything else went to the studio with the row number, so nobody had to go looking. The praise went to the studio as well: a Japanese player called the translation "very good", and IGN China singled out the humor of every character. Read the full story.
Case Studies
Discover how we combine AAA reliability with indie passion, rare-language expertise, and custom tech—and see how we’ve helped publishers and developers launch unforgettable experiences worldwide.Just Launched: Graveyard Keeper 2 – 8/10 from IGN China
Scope: 61,758 words of black comedy into Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Korean for Lazy Bear Games and tinyBuild, plus full LQA in all three languages.
Challenge: Puns, idioms and 45 distinct character voices, from a sarcastic floating skull to a communist donkey, delivered in seven batches while the story was still being written.
Solution: Jokes re-created rather than translated, every question to the studio asked instead of guessed, in-game LQA before launch and a 30-day review watch after it.
Result: IGN China scored it 8/10 and singled out the humor of every character. One Chinese player even refunded the game and still left a thumbs up, "for Larry's sake". Lazy Bear Games on X: "We loved working with this team!"
Read more | The full story on our blog
AAA Spotlight: F1 25 – Translation at 300 km/h
Scope: 282,117 words across VO, OST, marketing, and UI.
Challenge: Daily drops of up to 4,000 words, highly technical F1 jargon, and Braking Point 3’s emotional dialogue, all under relentless deadlines.
Solution: Delivered seamless Dutch localization using our custom
CATOTITUDE
tool to maintain consistency across 705 pages.
Result: Launched without a hitch, in immersive, authentic Dutch.
Read the full story
Licensed IP: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Definitive Edition
Scope: More than 116,000 words translated into Japanese, for Amber Studio, on Relic Entertainment's RTS classic: base game plus all three expansions through Soulstorm.
Challenge: Japanese sat half-finished in the build and players patched it in themselves. Twenty years of lore, nine factions and the official Japanese Warhammer terminology, with no separate LQA phase in the schedule.
Solution: Terminology enforced live in our own
CATOTITUDE
tool from the first week, every faction given its own voice, and the Ork "Waaagh!" rendered as いくさだァァァア！, the cry Japanese fans already used.
Result: Japanese shipped as an official Steam language in patch 2.6.0, and every Japanese Steam review is positive. The player behind the Japanese community patch retired it and thanked Relic for the official support.
Read more | The full story on our blog
Critically Acclaimed: Phonopolis
Scope: Japanese localization of Amanita Design’s hand-crafted adventure, delivered through our channel partner Context Heroes.
Challenge: A surreal, dialogue-rich world where tone and wordplay carry the whole experience, exactly the kind of writing that punishes literal translation.
Solution: Native Japanese localization tuned to Amanita’s distinctive voice, in close collaboration with Context Heroes.
Result: Shipped day-one in Japanese on Steam, Epic, and GOG, and launched to a Metacritic score of 86. A Japanese player on Steam: ローカライズやメニュー画面のアニメーションなど随所に品質の高さを感じる, 'you feel the high quality everywhere, from the localization to the menu animations'.
Demo Out Now: Rolling Stock, Chinese and Korean on Short Notice
Scope: Simplified Chinese and Korean for Rolling Stock, a physics-based co-op train loading game by the indie team Warning, No Pressure: the in-game letters, menus, store page and all 26 Steam achievements.
Challenge: Five weeks to the demo, a store page that already promised both languages, and achievement names that are nearly all wordplay.
Solution: Native translators on each language, every question to the studio asked instead of guessed, and puns re-created rather than translated. "Rolling in the Black" became 财源滚滚 in Chinese, 'wealth keeps rolling in'. Delivered straight into the studio's own sheets, with the Steam files ready to upload.
Result: The demo launched on 8 October 2026 with Chinese and Korean on board, visitors from both markets are climbing, and there has not been a single complaint about either translation. In the studio's words: "The communication is fast and professional and the process is easy and painless."
Read more | Wishlist it on Steam
Indie Highlight: Cash Cleaner Simulator
Scope: Japanese & Chinese localization for Forklift Interactive’s quirky sim.
Challenge: Shady contracts, counterfeit bills, cultural sensitivities around real currency names, and sheets delivered in chaotic fragments.
Solution: Delivered full Japanese & Simplified Chinese localization with Aya Pickard, Rumi Tasaki, Noah van Kooten, and Niu Pengfei — combining narrative instincts, cultural adaptation, and sheer persistence.
Result: Reviewed on Game*Spark (5M monthly readers), who wrote that playing in Japanese makes the atmosphere and the chats easy to follow. Steam reviews hit 91% “Very Positive” on launch.
Read the full story
Narrative Depth: Bloomtown – A Different Story
Scope: 149,156 words into Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English (from Russian).
Challenge: Small-town Americana charm meets JRPG horror. Sarcasm, humor, and dread all had to balance seamlessly across four languages. 1,338 terms defined; 600+ context questions resolved.
Solution: Nine months of careful translation, followed by 50 hours of full playthrough LQA per language. Leveraged our in-house
CATOTITUDE
tool to streamline revisions and guarantee cross-project consistency.
Result: Japanese players on Steam wrote 翻訳精度も高く掛け合いもゲームシステムも面白いです, 'the translation is accurate, and both the banter and the game systems are fun', and a Korean review with 47 helpful votes praised 센스 있고 높은 퀄리티의 한글화, 'witty, high-quality Korean'. Developers at Lazy Bear Games called our CAT tool “a BFG in the world of translation” and praised our scrupulous, reliable delivery across five projects together.
Read the full story
Services & Scope
- Market Launch Support (Japan & Taiwan: store-readiness, age rating, press & streamer outreach) — learn more
- Text Localization (UI, quests, lore, store pages, legal/EULA, marketing)
- LQA (menu & in-context checks, full playthrough passes, bug repro and fixes)
- Terminology (termbase creation, style guides, per-feature changelogs)
- Subtitling & Captions (game trailers, dev diaries, social)
- Engineering Support (string extraction guidance, format sanity checks)
- Partner Network for VO and graphic/DTP (on request; single point of contact)
Process You Can Count On
- Kickoff — scope & languages, milestones, comms channel set-up (Slack/Discord/Email), risk map.
- Pilot & Glossary — sample pass, voice & tone alignment, terminology lock.
- Sprints — daily/weekly drops, CATOTITUDE for memory/consistency, issue tracking.
- LQA — in-game checks, bug tickets with repro steps, fixes & regressions verified.
- Submission-Ready — console glossary compliance and checklist review.
- Post-Launch — 30-day Steam review watch and micro-patch suggestions.
Capacity & Timelines
Mid-sized friendly: several thousand words/day per language with surge support for peaks. We handle “chaotic” deliveries (CSV/TSV/JSON/XLIFF, fragmented sheets) and shifting deadlines without drama.
Quality Assurance & KPIs
- QA Framework: dual-review for critical strings, terminology lock, automated checks (placeholders, length, encoding)
- LQA Protocol: checklist-based passes, screenshots/video attachments, priority labels, regression verification
- KPIs We Report: on-time delivery %, defect density per 1k words, first-pass acceptance rate, turnaround SLAs
Our Guarantee
We stand behind every word we deliver. If a localization defect traces back to us, we fix it promptly and at our own cost — and we keep watching for 30 days after launch, not just until the invoice clears. The KPIs above are the standards we hold ourselves to and report back to you, so quality is something you can verify, not something you have to take on faith.
Tech & Integrations
- File formats: CSV/TSV, JSON, PO, RESX, XLIFF, XML, YML, TXT
- Engines & tools: Unity/Unreal string tables, Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft glossary compliance
- Version control: Git/Perforce workflows; branch-based delivery on request
- Issue tracking: Jira/Trello/YouTrack; your templates or ours
Security & Confidentiality
- NDA-ready processes with least-privilege access and audit trails
- GDPR-compliant handling of personal data and access-controlled repositories
- Confidential build handling with limited seats and expiring links
Pricing
Transparent baselines: From €0.10/word (EN→NL) and €0.13/word (EN→JP/ZH).
Volume & bundles: LQA bundles available.
No hidden fees: we confirm scope up front and keep changes documented in the sprint plan.
AAA Trust, Indie Passion: 17 years with EA and dozens of indie studios worldwide.
Developer’s Mindset: Our custom-built
CATOTITUDE
tool keeps terminology and revisions consistent across every language and every update.
Proven Experience: Over 31 years of full-time translation experience — more than
48,360,000 words delivered.
Reliable Quality: From in-game terminology to user agreements, we know it all.
Post-Launch Support: We monitor Steam reviews for a month after release and provide insights to improve the player experience.
"We're not just your translators. We're your game's biggest fans. We'll pour our hearts into every word, ensuring the localized version is flawless and just as captivating as the original."