Hole Knight: Silksong is soaring on Steam. Simply 24 hours after launch it’s taken over the gross sales charts, hit a concurrent participant peak of over 550,000, and acquired rave opinions from followers. However not in China. The long-awaited Metroidvania has as a substitute been getting review-bombed by Chinese language-language customers on Steam who really feel the interpretation this time round is far worse than that within the first Hole Knight. The pinnacle of promoting for the sport has already promised to place issues proper.
“To our Chinese speaking fans: We appreciate you letting us know about quality issues with the current Simplified Chinese translation of Hollow Knight: Silksong,” Matthew Griffin, in command of publishing for the sport, wrote on X. “We’ll be working to improve the translation over the coming weeks. Thanks for your feedback and support.” Regardless of the excellent news, his put up has been inundated with feedback and quote-tweets, many slamming the truth that the sport launched with out higher high quality checks for the Chinese language localization.
In accordance with localization professional Loek van Kooten, one of many predominant points is that Silksong‘s evocative but concise writing has been turned into “a high-school drama club’s Elizabethan improv night time” within the Chinese language variations. He cites the next for example of how the prose reads:
With nary a spirit nor thought shalt thou persist, bereft of mortal will, unbent, unswayed. With no lament nor tearful cry, solely sorrow’s dirge to herald thine everlasting woe. Born of gods and of the fathomless abyss, greedy heaven’s firmament in thine unworthy palm. Shackled to infinite dream, suffering from pestilence and shadow, thy coronary heart besieged by phantasmal demons. Thou artwork the chalice of future. Verily, thou artwork the Primordial Knight of Hollowness.
Van Kooten goes on to level out that one among two of Silksong‘s Chinese translators, listed as Hertzz Liu in the credits, had a habit of gloating about their involvement in the game and leaking small details about the development process over the summer prior to its release this week. The first Hollow Knight, on the other hand, had six Chinese translators, including one who had also worked on Stardew Valley.
no,you don’t hate localizer enough. we need translator,not a fanfic writer that doesn’t convey author’s original intention,the whole localization industry is a scam https://t.co/5Q8fBB6UiH
— NKRZE (@nekorize) September 5, 2025
Here’s a Valve-translated portion of 1 Steam evaluation blasting the Chinese language verison:
First, the god-awful Chinese language translation that everybody is mocking. It’s not simply pretentious, pseudo-artistic nonsense—the phrasing and even the localization of place names are an absolute mess. I don’t perceive how Hole Knight’s improbable, quotable translation become this unsalvageable heap of rubbish in Silksong. The totally idiotic localization has even affected the sport’s world-building and storytelling, forcing me to guess at character relationships and predominant plot factors. Fortunately, the fight holds up, or else I’d be fully disgusted.
Silksong at the moment sits at a staggeringly low ranking of simply 50 % out of 10,000 opinions within the simplified Chinese language class. That may be sufficient to considerably stunt the sport’s Steam ranking worldwide, not less than within the short-term, had Valve not implemented a recent change that segments Steam opinions by language for precisely this purpose. Now review-bombing in a single nation for region-specific points doesn’t bleed over right into a recreation’s general notion globally.
Not like when Hole Knight launched eight years in the past, Chinese language language customers now make up the largest group on Steam. Whereas poor translations don’t harm a recreation for anybody who’s not reliant on them, they will restrict a recreation’s trajectory on the Valve-owned storefront. By some means I in the end don’t assume that can be an issue for Silksong, particularly as soon as Staff Cherry will get the Chinese language translation sorted.
