Albert: Well for us, one of the difficult parts is that for Asia, the whole TYPE-MOON franchise has already been around for a long time. It’s originally in the Japanese language and in turn, the Chinese language is a lot easier to relate to when localizing. Even if you don’t read the same language you can look at the kanji and make a good guess at what’s going on. Obviously, that’s not the case for English. It’s two completely different systems of language. We have some fans who have followed the franchise since the beginning before any official translations came out and a lot of TYPE-MOON material hasn’t even been localized in North America yet! So one of the biggest challenges we had to face was that because of that, all of the existing materials are sort of fan translated - and when it's fan translated we have varying sides or owners translating things differently. Some terms may have a universal agreement on how things should be, but let's just say - the biggest term that we all know that people fought over was Saber's name.

When Saber’s name came out, as you know the official material (in Fate/Grand Order) says Altria, where some people say Artoria. Even Mr. Takeuchi himself drew art that said Master Artoria, but some other franchises have translated it as Arturia as well. So that’s one of the major challenges for us - that is, how to unify the different translations together.

We’re mainly looking at localizing this game for the fans. We want players to have a comfortable environment where they’re playing in the language they fully understand. Truly understand the flavor of Fate, the lore of Fate - and to do that, we need to unify the translations and make sure anyone can understand what’s going on. And sometimes it can be tough for everyone to agree. So that’s the biggest challenge.

Another thing is that Fate, the writing of Fate, is very different. It varies from author to author, but it also takes the trend between the fandom into consideration. Like how even in the Japanese F/GO or Fate/Extra, they call Green Archer Ryokucha (緑茶), which translates to green tea. So it’s a question of how we carry that flavor over. And that’s also one of our biggest challenges. It’s not just the language itself, but how to overcome the difference in culture and make sure that the flavor still stays intact.