Developer Klei Entertainment (hereinafter referred to as Klei) announced on April 25th the survival game “Don’t Starve Together” Updated Steam store page. Changed to support many languages including Japanese. However, its implementation is somewhat unique.
“Don’t Starve Together” is a work that introduces multiplayer elements to the popular survival game “Don’t Starve.” It is positioned as a standalone expansion pack, and you do not need to own the original version to play. Players choose a character, each with different characteristics, and try to survive on a mysterious island whose environment changes each time they play. Survive for as long as possible by doing things like eating, crafting, and creating bases.
This work was officially released for PC (Steam) in April 2016 after an early access distribution period of about one and a half years. It has been popular for a long time, and in May 2022, it was released for the domestic Nintendo Switch with Japanese support. However, the PC (Steam) version does not have official Japanese support, and in order to play in Japanese, the only option was to use a Japanese language mod by volunteers. In response to a question from our magazine, developer Klei revealed that they are considering adding Japanese language support to the PC version as well, and implementation has been eagerly awaited (see related article).
Then, on April 25th, the game’s Steam store page was suddenly updated. Many languages, including Japanese, have been marked as supported. When you actually start the game, the option Languages item says Japanese.
However, the Japanese version is classified as “Steam Workshop Collections”. Clicking on the Japanese button takes users to the developer’s Workshop Collection, which has a list of Japanese-compatible mods. In other words, it is implemented as an official guide from the game side to the “unofficial Japanese mod”. Users who want to play this game in Japanese can install the mod from the Steam Workshop. This is a mechanism that is applied in-game.
The supported languages on the Steam store page for this game appear to have been updated on April 25th (SteamDB). However, there are no updates released for this game after April 9th, and it is possible that Japanese support in the game’s current format had been quietly implemented before the store page was updated. That’s it. Although it is a special form of “officialization of an unofficial mod,” this work can be seen as having achieved “official Japanese support.”
“Don’t Starve Together” is currently available for PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch in Japan.
Tags: Steam version popular survival game Dont Starve officially Japanese Unofficial Japaneseization Mod officialized -
