Warhorse Studios, the developer behind the critically acclaimed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, has confirmed that it fired members of its translation and localization team and replaced them with automated translation tools. The decision has ignited a firestorm of criticism from translators, developers, and players across the industry.
The news broke when former Warhorse translators shared their experiences publicly, revealing that the studio had terminated their contracts in favor of machine translation systems. Multiple team members were affected across several language pairs, with the cuts hitting particularly hard in smaller European languages where specialized gaming translators are already rare.
The backlash has been swift and severe. Translation professionals have pointed out that Kingdom Come: Deliverance's historical setting and period-appropriate dialogue require deep cultural knowledge and linguistic nuance that automated tools simply cannot replicate. The original game was widely praised for its immersive, historically grounded writing — quality that relied heavily on skilled human translators who understood both medieval history and modern gaming conventions.
Industry organizations representing translators have condemned the move, calling it short-sighted and harmful to localization quality. Several prominent game developers have also voiced concern, noting that translation quality directly impacts player experience and review scores in non-English markets.
Warhorse has not issued a detailed public statement on the matter. The studio's silence has only intensified the controversy, with fans of the franchise expressing concern that post-launch content and future updates will suffer from lower-quality translations. It remains to be seen whether the backlash will prompt a reversal — but for now, the damage to Warhorse's reputation among localization professionals appears significant.