So I haven’t really talked about the basics of what I’m doing with Eisenwald, and thought it was a good idea to finally do so. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you would have picked up on some tweets about how Eisenwald is not a ‘translated’ work. Now those statements were born from a few things, namely a few reviews and comments people have made about the game. I totally understand the stigma surrounding a translated game and the sudden need for people to become grammar professionals overnight to highlight problems with the translation, however, I’d like to straighten out a few things, in order that people don’t get the wrong impression about the story and the English version of Eisenwald.

What do I mean that Eisenwald is not translated into English? Well, simply that. It is not a direct translation at all. Instead I take the existing story and rewrite nearly all the conversations, all the descriptions and basically all the text. Which means Eisenwald’s English version is built from the ground up.

So while I’m on the subject of my work on Eisenwald, let’s also talk about the process. How does the chain work? Well, I get sent the scripts from the team over at Aterdux and I get to work on taking the translated text and rewording it. Once I’m done with the structural edits and overall changes it gets sent to the English editor who does the line edits and proofreading. Once that’s done, it’s sent back to the team at Aterdux and then if there’s any changes or additions it’s sent back to us. Rinse, repeat.

What about mistakes? Ah, now as you know we are all human and text errors are bound to slip through here or there. And I’m no line editor, but thankfully we do have an editor looking at that to make sure that we prevent any errors from seeing the light of day. And it works, 99% of the time.

There’s something that’s not specific to game writing and that’s the fact that stylistic choices are not mistakes, even if you don’t appreciate that particular phrase or sentence. Sometimes dialogue may not seem grammatically correct, simply because it’s dialogue. There are various choices that have to be made that not everyone will agree on, but that’s just the way of it.

Why do I think that it’s such a big deal to say that Legends of Eisenwald is not a translated work? It’s a matter of perception. I don’t want people going into the game expecting mistakes, because as human nature dictates, we’ll naturally be looking for the inevitable mistake and see everything ‘stylistic’ as a mistake.

A big thanks to all the fans of the game and like them I’m looking forward to the big launch. Till then, I’ll keep writing and you keep playing!