The translation of mythical elements in game localization ——A case study of League of Legends

Abstract

With the development of the electronic information age, video games have become a common way of entertainment in people's lives. With the continuous development of China's game industry, more and more games are introduced into the Chinese market. In the process of game localization, how to deal with the understanding obstacles caused by cultural differences is a difficult problem. Mythical element is a kind of cultural symbol, and it is often a difficult point in game localization projects. This dissertation takes League of Legends as an example, selects some texts with mythical elements in League of Legends as research objects, and discusses and analyze the processing strategies of localization teams.

Mythical elements in electronic games are often integrated into all aspects of game design. It is found that there are many game contents with mythical elements, which involves various mythological systems. The localization team's handling strategy for such elements will change with various variables. However, after analysis, this study found that the use of these strategies was regular and based on the cognition of localization teams. In the process of game localization, the localization team needs to have a basic knowledge and understanding of the major mythological systems, and be able to associate relevant mythological stories or mythical characters according to the contents of the game, such as background stories and characters. At the same time, simple literal translation or transliteration is not enough. The localization team should flexibly use translation strategies such as rewriting, transcreation and amplification. Because for game translation, the experience of the target player is the most important thing. The localization team can arouse the psychological resonance of the target players, optimize the players' game experience and achieve the desired results only by processing the mythical elements into a form that the target players can understand.