The highly anticipated Honkai: Star Rail launched recently, and while I’ve never been a live-service RPG kind of person, I pre-installed it a week prior anyway, just to see what was up. My partner came out of the bathroom on the morning of the game’s launch to see me flopped across my bed, phone in hand, Himeko’s cheery voice piping out of my speaker. “How is it?” he asked. “These characters are, like, weirdly hot,” I replied.I’ve found my time with the game just fine, so far. Not great, but fine. I don’t feel an immediate pull to go back to the game, which is probably for the best,considering how addictive its gacha microtransactions are designed to be. The gameplay is decent, though I’m not a fan of playing on my phone and I suspect I’ll be more inclined to play it seriously when it comes out for PlayStation, which might not be for a while. I’ll likely continue to pick away at it during train rides into town.Related:Will Sony’s New Hire Help Change Crunch Culture?My play experience probably mirrors that of many newcomers to the Honkai universe, but definitely not that of hardcore fans, of which there are many. Mihoyo, the creator of both the Honkai games and Genshin Impact, has amassed a huge number of fans globally over a decade. Some of Honkai: Star Rail’s characters come from Honkai Impact 3rd, but the game is more a spiritual successor than anything – every character but one that came from a previous series has been given a new identity.
However, Star Rail and Honkai Impact take place in the same universe, so knowing the universe’s lore helps a lot with figuring out exactly what is going on with the story. I often found myself lost and confused, trying to read lengthy and jargon-filled letters and database entries that I’d collected while exploring levels. Unfortunately, some fans are highlighting that they’ve seen translation issues with Star Rail’s databank that can confuse lore for fans. Mihoyo is, after all, a Chinese company – much of the lore is communicated in writing, so all of it has to be translated and localised.
I speak some Chinese. Certainly not enough to localise anything in any capacity, but enough to understand that the words users are highlighting are indeed different in meaning. The errors seem small, but these are just the ones that have been caught. One user alleged that sometimes the dialogue option you choose doesn’t seem to match up with the response you get, but I haven’t seen evidence of that just yet. I do, however, think the lore of the game is dense and confusing enough that translation errors will make it worse. As it is, the translated prose doesn’t read well, and I simply cannot bring myself to trawl through pages of lore that I have to fight to understand.
I suspect this is due to overworked translators. It’s the logical explanation. I had a peek at Mihoyo’s Glassdoor reviews and found a single three-star review from a former localisation project manager submitted in March 2023 that said the localisation team was toxic, translators are working overtime to deal with a heavy workload, and turnover rate is very high, with little training for new hires. Most of the other reviews were four- or five-star one-liners, almost all of which referenced work-life balance issues, a lot of overtime, and long working hours. What they say about the company doesn’t seem to match up with the rating they give out – read into that what you will.
I can’t verify if this is true as Glassdoor reviews are anonymous, but if it is, it would indicate that translators aren’t given the resources or time to do a good job with the text in the game. Considering that dialogue is front and centre in the game, it would make sense that lore entries fall to the wayside, as people are less likely to see them. If other departments in Mihoyo face a similar problem with overtime work and unsustainable workloads, then what other issues are getting glossed over that we haven’t caught, and what do they mean for the game’s future?
