Localization Specialist

Localization in games splits into translation, adaptation and testing, and this role usually touches all three. Strings arrive out of the build, often without the scene they belong to, so the work starts with establishing what a line means before deciding how it should sound. Formats for dates and numbers, forms of address, in-game text on images and age-rating wording follow the same path.

A large share of the work is localization QA: playing a build in the target language, checking that text fits its box, that nothing stayed in the source language and that a line reads naturally where the player meets it. Findings go back as bug reports with a reproduction path, which puts the job close to QA practice and to the build pipeline.

A Localization Manager plans schedules, vendors and budgets across titles, and a Localization Writer produces original text in the target language. The specialist does the language pass itself and signs the build off.