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"Instead of just correcting translation [errors], we're bringing creativity back [for the linguist with Samurai AI ]. I may not go as far as saying it’s an entirely new role in the industry, but it’s definitely something that hasn’t existed for a while."
—Steven Garrad, AI for Content Team Manager, Lionbridge
Game localization has long been challenging for studios trying to reach diverse global audiences. Translating thousands of strings, adapting dialogue for different cultures, and preserving creative intent, all while meeting aggressive deadlines and budget constraints, can be overwhelming. But what if there was a way to streamline workflows and empower linguists with creative freedom through cutting-edge technology?
Now there is, with Lionbridge Samurai, our AI-driven game localization solution. Lionbridge Samurai is a comprehensive translation approach for games that tailors translations to each game's unique content, style, and cultural expectations by combining advanced technology with expert human linguists.
During our Lionbridge Samurai webinar, “Lionbridge Samurai in Action,” Lionbridge Samurai AI experts, Steven Garrad and Nicolas Underwood, showcased how this groundbreaking AI for games empowers human linguists to guide the LLM to deliver high-quality, culturally relevant game localization with unprecedented efficiency.
Want to watch the webinar in its entirety? Use the button below to access the recording.
How Does Lionbridge Samurai Differ From Other AI-Powered Game Localization Tools?
If you’ve tried using AI localization for your games, you’ve likely been disappointed with the output. Machine Translation (MT) has limitations, especially for complex or highly creative game content, often missing context, gender nuances, or cultural references. That’s why we built Lionbridge Samurai, a groundbreaking approach that delivers on the promise of unprecedented efficiency with human-quality game translation.
Unlike other AI-powered localization tools for games, Samurai puts the expert linguist at the heart of an AI-enabled process fully customized for the unique challenges of each game. AI-powered translations are not simply pre-generated for review; instead, linguists interact with live AI outputs, customizing style, tone, and context on the fly.
Whether it's patch notes requiring technical precision or creative dialogue needing transcreation, linguists can iterate in real time, reducing manual work and, importantly, enhancing the quality level that has been previously so elusive with AI-based solutions.
How Does Lionbridge Samurai Incorporate a Human-at-the-Core Approach To Ensure Game Localization Quality?
Lionbridge Samurai uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to support, not replace, human linguists. This approach keeps linguists in complete control of every translation decision, refining, personalizing, and creatively shaping content for each game.
The platform allows linguists to interactively adjust translation prompts, apply glossaries and Translation Memory (TM), and even build custom context maps for every IP. The result? Consistent, high-quality translations for everything from technical documentation to immersive in-game dialogue.
Lionbridge Samurai in the real world
Nicolas and Steven demonstrated how linguists can tweak prompts for different characters, adjust levels of formality, and quickly adapt translation solutions for the particular challenges presented by different languages.
In their demonstration, we saw how translators could tweak the speaking style of characters in a hypothetical Batman game. Translators could define Alfred's dialogue as a more formal British style or a more cockney English. They could specify that Batgirl's lines be punchy and street-savvy. The linguist's creative input is not just preserved, it's amplified.
Another major innovation is the ability to process conversations as a whole, leveraging context across entire scenes or dialogue trees. This feature means references to characters, enemies, or world-building elements aren’t lost in translation.
Multi-language support (for all core game languages) ensures global reach, while context-driven workflows handle the intricacies of each locale.
How Does Samurai Accelerate Project Delivery and Lower Costs?
Rapid onboarding
The pressure to launch games globally, often in dozens of languages, requires localization solutions that are both fast and cost-effective. With Lionbridge Samurai, onboarding for small games can be completed in as little as a day, while even massive projects with 200+ characters can be configured in a week.
Flexible workflows
The Lionbridge team, composed of expert linguists and configuration specialists, tailors each Samurai deployment for every game. They work closely with global language leads and translators to ensure consistency, accuracy, and creative nuance. Lionbridge Samurai supports all major file formats and can ingest content from any game engine, thanks to flexible connectors and internal engineering support.
AI efficiencies for greater value
Samurai can reduce costs by up to 30% and turnaround time by up to 50% compared with traditional Translation, Editing, and Proofreading (TEP) workflows. The platform also supports a range of game translation service levels to meet content needs, from rapid translation and low-cost proofreading to premium transcreation and advanced validation.
Preserved quality
Despite efficiency gains, quality remains uncompromised. Samurai's output matches the quality of human TEP, supported by rigorous human review and quality monitoring. Linguists say that working with Samurai content is more satisfying and creatively engaging than post-editing MT outputs, resulting in better outcomes for players and studios alike.
What About Security and Privacy?
Lionbridge Samurai is designed to meet enterprise security and compliance standards. The platform uses Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service GPT models under an enterprise license, ensuring that content is not stored, shared, or reused outside the translation workflow. All project data is managed in accordance with strict agreements and ISO protection protocols.
What Are Linguists Saying About Lionbridge Samurai?
Change can be daunting, especially when new technology is introduced into an established workflow. Yet we’ve found that our linguists are enthusiastically embracing Samurai.
Once onboarded, they quickly realize the platform enables them to focus on creative, impactful localization, rather than repetitive error correction.
With human-in-the-loop workflows, linguists collaborate with AI technology to engage transcreationally with the content, bringing the game to life in the target market. It’s a rewarding approach that reinforces their creative role.
What Are the Practical Applications and Future Roadmap?
Lionbridge Samurai supports over 100 languages with flexible workflows for both technical and creative content. The platform is constantly evolving, with plans to introduce public APIs and expand automation for project managers and studios.
For every project, Lionbridge builds and maintains dedicated glossaries and TMs to ensure consistent, accurate terminology from start to finish. This ongoing resource management helps deliver reliable, high-quality localizations and supports seamless collaboration across teams and languages. As the platform evolves, Lionbridge continues to invest in advanced context mapping and multi-source translation capabilities to address complex workflows and maintain industry-leading standards.
As AI tools become more prevalent in the industry, Lionbridge remains committed to responsible innovation, ethical data use, and maintaining the human touch in video game localization services.
What Are the Key Webinar Takeaways?
This webinar highlighted Lionbridge’s innovative approach to game localization. Here are the main points:
- Lionbridge Samurai is a service, not a licensed application, designed to empower linguists with AI-powered, context-rich translation tools.
- Human-in-the-loop workflows allow translators to customize, edit, and creatively refine translations, ensuring high engagement and consistency.
- Samurai delivers TEP-level quality or better and supports a range of languages, with flexible workflows for technical, creative, and marketing content.
- The platform enables rapid onboarding and highly customized project configuration, making it suitable for both small and large-scale games.
- Linguists report improved job satisfaction and creativity, moving beyond error correction to impactful transcreation.
- Glossaries and TMs are integrated flexibly, and context-building is prioritized for accuracy.
- Cost and speed are optimized, with Samurai offering up to 30% cost savings and twice the speed of traditional processes.
- Translators work in collaboration with AI-powered localization tools, ensuring every line is reviewed by an expert linguist.
- Security and privacy are addressed via enterprise-grade hosting and responsible data management.
Samurai supports all major file formats and connectors. Simply provide your content, and our engineering team will ensure it's compatible for ingestion, regardless of the source.
Samurai can technically support over 100 languages. In practice, we cover all languages commonly required for game launches and can add more as needed.
Full context improves quality. If only partial dialogues are provided, we apply custom strategies to maintain quality, but having full conversations is always preferred.
No, we rely on the same human quality evaluation methodologies that we use for traditional human localization. It provides more actionable feedback for continuous improvement and ensures we expect no less from Samurai than we do from traditional models.
Glossaries are highly beneficial and built as part of onboarding if not provided. TMs are used flexibly to improve consistency and quality and are fully supported as a part of Samurai.
Samurai leverages Microsoft Azure enterprise-hosted GPT models, ensuring content is not stored, shared, or reused. All project data is managed in accordance with strict agreements and ISO protocols.
Samurai typically delivers 30% cost savings and doubles translation speed compared to traditional workflows, while maintaining human-level quality.
Onboarding for small games can be completed in a day. Large projects may take up to a week, depending on complexity and the number of characters.
If you are interested in exploring other Lionbridge AI-related webinar topics, visit the Lionbridge webinars page for a library of recordings.
Get in touch
Ready to level up your game localization? Lionbridge Samurai offers the perfect blend of AI-powered innovation and human expertise, helping you reach new markets, enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and empower your linguists without sacrificing quality. Reach out today to learn how Lionbridge Games can help you win.
Note: The Lionbridge Content Remix App initially generated this blog post, and a human then refined it.
