The object of the research paper is video game localization as an emerging domain

in Translation Studies and its current status in Ukraine. The material for the practical
part of the course project comprises the video games by BioWare studio, namely
Baldur's Gate, Baldur’s Gate II, Mass Effec, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age,
Dragon Age II and their translation and localization.

The subject of the research paper is the identification of the peculiarities,

characteristic features and specifics of the process of video game localization and
translation into Ukrainian.

Among the main objectives of this paper are:

1) to analyze the notion of localization;

2) to highlight the existent approaches to video game localization;
3) to outline primary challenges related to the localization process;
4) to analyze main factors which might influence the translator's choice during the
localization process;
5) to analyze possible translation strategies which may be applied during video
game localization;

Continuing to consider the translations of proper names, one could often come across
jokes and ironic addresses. For example, one sharp-tongued character addresses
another named Haer'Dalis and calls him Haerry, which sounds like hairy [ˈher.i/] in
English, so Haer'Dalis asks not to be called like that. In this situation, in the
Ukrainian version of the video game, Haerry is rendered as Гейко (abbreviated Гейр
+ diminutive suffix -ko-). And thanks to it, the translator also created a comic effect.

The expression "it used to rain turtles on even days and frogs on odd days" is similar
to the well-known English idiomatic expression "it is raining cats and dogs", i.e.
"very abundantly" [31]. In translation, it sounds like " колись тих черепах було, хоч
греблю гати." That is, lolalizers used idiomatic translation and provided the
Ukrainian phraseologism "хоч греблю гати", which is a good and appropriate option
here.
 The way she looks when talking about Вона говорить про атомну
nuclear engineering is the same way I інженерію з таким виглядом, з яким
look at my grandmother’s dolmades. я дивлюся на бабусині голубці.

In this example, the localizer replaced the dish of the national cuisine of another
country with Ukrainian. Both are leaves stuffed with minced meat: cabbage leaves for
holubtsi, grape leaves for dolma. Such a replacement can be considered appropriate,
since the nationality of the author of these words is unknown and unimportant for the
overall plot.

WARNING: Approaching crush depth of УВАГА: ви досягли загрозливої

{0} meters глибини ({0} м)

During gameplay, the variable {0} will change to a certain number. The main
difficulty is that the resulting text sounds correct for all possible variants of the
variable (for example, as a result of incorrect localization, there may be a mismatch
of "1 метра", "3 метр", etc.). In order to avoid inconsistencies, the translator used
two transformations at once: at the lexical level, he or she replaced the full word
meters with a generally accepted shortening; at the syntactic level, moved the
variable into parentheses so that it does not need to be coordinated with other parts of
the sentence.

After analyzing the material, it can be concluded that the difficulty of translation,
associated with the lack of context, leads to the emergence of problems in conveying
the completeness of both content and expression.

The main goal is the naturalness of the sounding of the translated quasirealias in the
Ukrainian language. Among the main translation transformations for quasirealias, we
can highlight creation of translation neologism, contextual substitution based on the
visual component of the game, hyponymic translation and semantic development.

Accordingly, the main transformations in the translation of the descriptions were the
syntactic change of the sentence structure, the addition of explanations, the removal
of scientific style words.