Foreign Language Dialogue: Subtitles and the Narrative Experience

Imagine this movie scene: Two siblings sitting at a table with the rest of their family. The angry parents tell these siblings not to sneak out of the house at night ever again. The older sister says “OK, we understand,” but as she does, she looks over at her younger brother and winks. What do you think she really meant by this statement?

It is fairly obvious that the intent behind her statement “OK, we understand” was to deceive her parents. This intent, however, did not come from the dialogue at all, but from the context added by her wink to her brother. As with any movie scene, interactions between characters are composed of many elements and a proper understanding of these elements is required to understand the scene. As the diagram below illustrates, any distraction from one or more of these elements can cause you to miss critical contextual information.

Diagram showing the effects of missing either subtitles or dialogue in a viewing experience.

Recently, while playing Ghost of Tsushima, I noticed the added challenge that subtitles present in video games. As an avid viewer of international cinema, I am not unfamiliar with the practice of reading subtitles while consuming content. Over time, I have come to understand the disadvantages of reading subtitles as two-fold. By reading a translated version of a dialogue, I am likely missing cultural references, humor, and intricacies that are not easily translated. This lack of cultural understanding is something that can only be overcome by learning the language in question. Secondly, and the focus for this blog post, is that I am not able to fully watch the characters on screen and the words at the same time. If for any reason I need subtitles for dialogue, then I am at risk of missing critical visual context. This lack of context can lead people to misunderstand situations like that of the siblings and their parents. While this division of focus can be sometimes troublesome when watching films, with practice it is a relatively minor issue. Other media forms like video games, however, face larger hurdles.

Ghost of Tsushima offers multiple language/subtitle options at the beginning of the game. Upon a recommendation from a friend, I chose to play the game with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles. Any preconceived notions I had that my previous experience reading subtitles in films would help me, however, were quickly erased. The key differentiator in games that makes subtitles so difficult to read is the required input from the player. While subtitled cut scenes in games function exactly as a scene would in a film, any part of the game that requires the player to control a character while also reading subtitled dialogue is incredibly tricky. The player has the option to either stop using their character to read the subtitles, keep moving their character and ignore the subtitles, or do both at the same time and inevitably run the risk of missing either dialogue or character movements.

The prologue of Ghost of Tsushima provides a good example of how this dilemma functions in a game setting. During the prologue, your character follows a woman named Yuna through a village. As you move, Yuna continues a dialogue with you and gives you commands on what to do next. I found myself missing her commands occasionally as I focused more on my character movement and less on reading her commands.

Yuna calls for the player to follow her through the fence. (IGN, 2020)

Ghost of Tsushima attempts to deal with this issue of divided attention by providing visual cues on what you should do in case you miss the dialogue. For example, Yuna will pause and wait for you to move towards her. The game also provides button cues which indicate what objects you should interact with next. The importance of reinforcing the desired path for the gamer is not only basic UX practice, but it is also a good thing to keep in mind in games where subtitles might be the only source of dialogue consumption for players. Reinforcing the desired player path through visual cues, as done in Ghost of Tsushima, is one good way to avoid subtitled games from being inaccessible.      

Player instruction, however, is just one of the functions of in-game dialogue. The large majority of the dialogue in Ghost of Tsushima is purely narrative and worldbuilding. During several of the early missions in the game, I found myself missing large chunks of this dialogue as I focused on steering my horse in lieu of reading subtitles. I presume that Ghost of Tsushima and many similar games establish a hierarchy of importance for the in-game dialogue. Essential dialogue is most likely presented in cut scenes which allow the player to read subtitles without distraction. Dialogue outside of these cut scenes may have varying levels of importance but will not hinder the player’s overall understanding of the narrative too much if they miss it. I find this need to structure the narrative and dialogue around situations where a player’s attention may be diverted to be a fascinating challenge.

I strongly believe that the fact games are now featuring multiple languages and subtitles is a good development in terms of representation, authenticity, and accessibility. With that being said, the subtitling of games with foreign language dialogue introduces unique challenges that developers must not overlook. A player that is able to read all the dialogue will most likely receive the richest gaming experience, but how can a narrative be most effectively constructed if this is not possible? What dialogue will enrich the story-world the most and in doing so be given the coveted gameplay spots where the player has the free-time to read? I propose more questions than answers, but I believe these questions can serve a starting point for further discussions. My hope is that these considerations will become more commonplace as the industry strives to provide more diverse experiences in games.

References

IGN. (2020). [Jin Sakai follows Yuna through a fence]. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from https://www.ign.com/wikis/ghost-of-tsushima/Prologue#Follow_Yuna_to_recover_your_sword