Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)

Komo, here's one specially for you!

[YOUTUBE]?v=S0SDCr7U-wg[/YOUTUBE]

It's the Russian language version of that 35 minute gameplay video that has been released in English and Polish earlier. CD Projekt always put a lot of effort in the localization of their games (which makes sense, considering the fact that the company has origins in re-releasing foreign games for the Polish market).

 

In the Polish video they released (one that I posted sometime earlier), the lip-syncing did not match the audio. I'm not sure whether that was the case with this one as I only watched bits and I'm not fluent with Russian at all, but I've heard that at least the other clips are in fact using the lip-syncing from the initial English version of the video and this will look completely different in the final product by February. It is kinda disappointing considering where the game is from, but it's understandable that they wanna make the content presentable in English first for marketing purposes now that they've grown as a company and people outside of Eastern Europe have realised they even exist. As for the subtitles not matching the speech, I guess that's another thing they'll also have to fix by the time of release (they better!).

As far as I can tell, people seemed really happy with the Russian localization of W2, so if you're planning to buy W3 then hopefully that will be good news to you. CD Projekt seem to put a lot of effort into making foreign versions of the Wiedźmin games, but I have to say they give you Russians plenty of special treatment compared to other translations. It's probably because the other games have sold there reasonably well or something, and I've heard that Sapkowski's saga was fairly popular there to begin with (makes sense, considering some of the inspirations from Slavic folklore), but you'd probably know more about that than me so I may be wrong. Besides, the Witcher just sounds better when it's in a Slavic language.

 

That localization of Dead Space sounds pretty damn nice indeed. I've only played the first one in English, but I have to admit that EA are putting plenty of effort into the Polish localization of their games as well. The Mass Effect and Dragon Age series started off with fairly average voiceover quality, though they gradually got better. Still, I usually prefer playing all games in their native language (even if it means using subtitles).

However, the Polish localization of Battlefield 3 was amazing. It just sounded so natural. And the texts in multiplayer were funny as hell, because they sounded exactly like something a Pole would say in combat; a good example of this is: granat wam w dupę, cwele! - meaning "grenade up your ass, cwele". Cwel (pronounced tsfel), expressed in plural form here, is a special word we have in the Polish language that literally means "a male prison inmate who lets himself be raped". I don't think there's a one-word translation to English. :lol: In all seriousness though, it was an awesome dub and one of the very few times that I chose it over the original version. So although I'm not a fan of EA in general, I have to admit they know which people to get for the job of localizing their products.

The trouble with full audio Polish localization of games is that they often get famous actors to play the roles so they are too familiar, and often too theatrical and unnatural as well. It sounds similar to the issues you mentioned with Russian dubs. For the most part I very much enjoyed the Polish versions of both Witcher games (completed them in English and Polish), partly due to the better writing and references to culture that wouldn't make sense if they put them in the English version, but even they suffered from this over-familiarity and over-theatrical sound at times.

Huh, that's interesting, I was wondering where that guy was from. I've read one interview with CD Projekt where they said that they started off as a practically wholly Polish studio. By the time work on W2 started, the foreign developers working at CDPR could be counted on one hand. Now they make up about a quarter of the team, so they often have to use English so that everyone understands things well enough. It's obvious why they've grown with time, but as long as they retain their gamer-friendly attitude and continue working on great games, I can only see this as a good thing - getting talent from all over the world to diversify the project and make it even better.

Sucks to hear that man, it's strange that they localized the first one but not this one. They have a much larger budget this time round. Maybe they will do this post-release?

 

What do you mean? From English to Hungarian, Polish, Russian, or a different language?

 

It's practically the same when it comes to localisation of games for a Polish audience (or rather gamers). I've met many other Polish gamers who can't speak English but still prefer to play foreign games in English with subtitles in Polish, as the Polish dub usually isn't up to scratch if there is one. It's gotten better over time though, and it's obviously a good sign when giants like EA starting giving a crap about translating their games for a fairly small Eastern European country.

 

Good news, anyone who doesn't own the game yet can grab Witcher 2 for free on GOG.com (but you have to log in every once in a while to "collect stamps" before obtaining your copy). You will also get a movie at no extra cost, called "The Gamers: Director's Cut" (haven't heard of it before, but it looks funny). I guess I should have mentioned this yesterday when I noticed it, so sorry for forgetting. I'm not sure how long the stamps will be there for, but probably for the duration of the autumn sale. Also, you can get a free copy of Mount & Blade as well. It's all on the home page, but you have to scroll down a bit to see the stuff.

 

Four days ago a FAQ about W3 was posted in Polish, but I didn't link it here because it wouldn't be of much use to yous and I was expecting CD Projekt to release an English version soon after. It looks like there is no English version however, so I'm leaving the link to the Polish one after all: http://thewitcher.com/news/view/895 Sorry for not translating it, I really can't be bothered. Maybe using Google Translate will give you a somewhat comprehensible result.