GamerNode: News - The Witcher heavily edited during English translation

The Witcher heavily edited during English translation

Category: PC, Posted: 11/08/2007 at 10:47AM EST by Sean Pincombe, Staff Writer

Polish developer CD Projekt's new RPG, The Witcher, has been heavily edited and censored during it's English translation according to fans of the game and one of the writers.

Posting on the official Witcher forums, writer Sande Chen said "Yes, it's true. My writing partner and I worked on the English adaptation of the script (based on the translation from the Polish script). It was edited down considerably, not because of censorship, though."

According to the fans though, some of the changes that have been made are quite drastic. For example, a line in the polish that directly translated to English reads as "Why do p**cks go in c**ts? It's the natural order of things. Humans have always disliked dwarves and elves. Not for me to know why," has been changed to just say "Humans have always hated dwarves and elves."

With some of language found in other modern M-rated games it's quite strange that sections like the above have been changed with lines of dialogue completely removed.

Chen also posted on her blog about the issue, writing "As writers, we accept that when we hand over the script, there's always the possibility it will get changed. It is sad that not all was able to be retained, but the cuts were ideally done in a fashion so as to keep as much of the original meaning as possible. We think CD Projekt has done a phenomenal job."

The Witcher is out now for PC

[via ShackNews]

Posted by Archem on 11/08/2007 at 03:52PM

Blows.

Posted by MorpheusX on 11/09/2007 at 05:09AM

Some clarification.

First of all, the translation of the line "why do pr..s go in c...s" is definitely incorrect.
The polish words: "kuśka" and "piczka" used in the oryginal game script are far milder than cited english translation. Especially the later is definitelly far-far milder than the C-word. You can use it in conversation and it won't offend anybody (well almost anybody). The game went quite far regarding swearing, but not THAT far.

Secondly, in my opinion the changes in script and translation in english version are mainly cosmetics, but... in entertainment industry EVERYTHING is about cosmetics. If you take just the important, meaningfull lines from let's say The Beatles lyrics, or Woody Allen movies, you end up with something unberably dry and lacking any value.

The art of translation is difficult - translating idioms and cultural refferences (there is quite a lot of political alusions in the witcher script) requires knowledge, patience and skill. It is sad to hear though, that the publisher was handed good script (from what the translator says) but decided to cut corners anyway during voice-overs. It seems to me, that the big financial problems Atari is in at the moment are mainly due to the fact that they are just doing their jobs for money and not because they do what they like. I certainly hope that CD Project will learn from this and will ensure more control over the localisations in their future projects.

Regards