A German view on translation in Dragon Age Veilguard

Hello,

If you’re reading this, you should know that I’ve been following these forums since they were founded and was also a member of the old Bioware Network, but I never made a new account after it closed.


Let’s begin with the game experience itself. I was quite worried after seeing the trailers, but now that I’ve finished the game, I can say that I don’t regret buying it. It’s a pretty great game overall in my opinion even if it is missing a good chunk of choices of the earlier games.

However, what really threw me off in certain scenes was the translation into German. I’d like to know if other languages had similar issues. Before I go deeper into this: I don’t care about the controversy surrounding the "woke" themes. I had multiple dialogues with my character (Rook) and other NPCs (cutscenes included) where non-binary pronouns were used in translation. I’m not judging whether this is positive or negative—I just want to focus on how the translation impacted immersion.


In German, there are masculine, feminine, and neuter forms for nouns and pronouns. The way non-binary conversations were translated felt unnatural and sometimes confusing. For example, “The Guardian” which would be translated as “Der/ Die Behüter (neutrum/maskulinum) . But in the game, they used “Behütere,” which makes no sense in German. It felt incredibly strange to hear voice actors use these terms, especially during scenes where characters couldnt even know the pronouns of an enemy and started referring to them as “hen.” I was left wondering, “Who is hen?”

I’m not against Bioware’s goal of promoting inclusivity. However, direct translation of non-binary language from English to German without adaptation doesn’t work seamlessly. A more neutral translation would have preserved the intent without breaking immersion, as most people would still understand what was happening.

I’m curious if other languages face similar issues. Translating non-binary language 1:1 can disrupt the flow of languages that use grammatical gender.

I’d love to hear if others had similar experiences in different languages. For me, it was a noticeable “stumble” in the narrative that affected how I engaged with the game.

Thank you, and I hope we can have a civil discussion about this!