Case Study

Stronghold: Warlords

Stronghold is a venerable PC real-time strategy game franchise dating back to 2001.

When the BAFTA-nominated developer Firefly Studios approached us to provide additional authenticity to their latest game, Stronghold: Warlords, we decided and swiftly started the new project.

Focus on Asia

Unlike previous titles, Stronghold: Warlords is focused primarily on Asia, with events drawing inspiration from historical events of what is now China, Vietnam, and Japan.

Since a significant portion of the game involves Japan, historical accuracy and the use of appropriate Japanese periods were crucial. As such, we were tasked to translate the game text, dialogue text, and NPC voice-overs so that Japanese historical figures would be speaking in their native language.

Text Localization

Since its announcement during E3 in 2019, development of the game continued, and we started localization of in-game UI text and dialog starting November 2020 for the anticipated release date of January 9, 2021 (which was ultimately changed to March 9, 2021 due to additional time required to polish the multiplayer experience).

The base game had over 65,000 words to translate from English into Japanese. In addition, we provided translations of game-related materials such as Press Releases, Trailer captions, Community Posts, and various Marketing Materials.

Japanese Voice Over

For authentic results, our team in Japan gathered local voice talents and recorded over 2,300 lines of dialogue. As this game was finishing development during the heyday of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened quarantine measures forced the voice-over recording studio to enforce strict crowd control and personal distancing rules.

With only 1 sound engineer and 1 voice actor in the recording studio at the same time, which delayed completion of files, but we were able to deliver on time the required files thanks to hard work from every party involved.