Along with the release of the Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update, Ukrainian localization was added to the game. Unfortunately, the localization was limited to only text and subtitles, voice acting is not yet available to Ukrainian players. However, even text localization showed developers a great interest in the presence of the Ukrainian language in games. This comes from a recording of a podcast dedicated to the localization of Cyberpunk 2077.
The release of localization affected users and almost halved the share of Ukrainian players who used the Russian version of the translation.
So, before the release of Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update with Ukrainian localization, Ukrainians played:
- completely in Russian (sound and text) ─ 88%
- completely in English (sound and text) ─ 7%
2 weeks after the release of the Ukrainian localization, the distribution changed as follows:
- completely in Russian (sound and text) ─ 46-48%
- Ukrainian subtitles ─ 42%
- completely in English (sound and text) ─ 7%
So, the appearance of text-only localization led to the fact that almost half of localizations that played with the Russian version switched to the Ukrainian version. At the same time, some users play with Russian voice acting and Ukrainian subtitles.
It should be noted that the results of Cyberpunk 2077 cannot be considered indicative of the general use of the Ukrainian localization. The fact is that localization was added for a game that has been on the market for 2 years. Many players have already used Russian localization and are used to Russian titles. And the Russian voice acting in the game is almost the main enemy of Ukrainian localization. Be that as it may, people perceive the Russian language by ear better than English. With great probability, we can assume that if the Ukrainian localization was available at the time of the game’s release, the share of those who use it would be even higher. And if Ukrainian voiceover were added to the release version of the game, then in general, few people would pay attention to the presence of Russian localization.
Thank you for confirming the words that the statistics of steam are as important as the sale and use of the language itself.
and thanks for the announcement. So that it is not there – I am waiting)
— Dobrodushnyi Ed (@Dobrodushnyi_Ed) December 20, 2023
In order for Ukrainian localization in the release version of the game to become a common practice for developers, it is necessary to demonstrate to them a high level of audience interest. The least that can be done for this is to install the Ukrainian version of the interface in Steam and other services or OS. This influences localization decisions (along with high sales in a particular country).
