CD Projekt have formally commented on the presence of references to the Russia-Ukraine war in Cyberpunk 2077’s recently added Ukrainian localisation, apologising for dialogue lines “that can be considered offensive by Russian gamers”, while reiterating their support for Ukraine.
In case you missed it, the Ukrainian script and menu localisation currently includes a number of antagonistic references to Russians and to the on-going Russian invasion of Ukraine. One dialogue line refers to a particular bandit group as “rusnia”, and there’s photo mode menu text for a squatting character that translates as “like a Russian”. There’s also lore text that apparently riffs on Ukrainian government rhetoric during the war, and a piece of in-game wallart that alludes to the dispute between Ukraine and Russia over Crimea.
Localization is generally contracted out to external studios. With the dozens of languages games are released in, localization is rarely done in house, especially for languages added in a patch well after release.
When CDPR says “These lines have not been written by CD PROJEKT RED staff and do not represent our views.” It makes sense.
The localization team, being fluent speakers of Ukranian, can be expected to have strong opinions on the war, so they chose to add the anti Russian lines.
It makes sense for CDPR to remove the lines. Sure their PR teams will apologize for the ‘offense,’ but the real issue is a localization team going rogue.
Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a far future californian dystopia. In an alternate history world where the present day would be unrecognizable to us. A future where Russia and Ukraine and others have reformed into a new USSR. This war in Ukraine did not happen in cyberpunk.
Adding references to the war in a localization is undermining the setting. Despite CDPR’s stated support for Ukraine, this is not how they want to do things. They are going to change the lines.