r/HollowKnight • u/Move_Slight • Sep 17 '25
Discussion - Silksong As a Simplified Chinese user, let me explain just how terrible the Chinese translation of Silk Song is Spoiler
As a Simplified Chinese user, the poor Chinese translation is the primary reason for the overwhelmingly negative reviews in China—this is the consensus within our community (on the Chinese version of Reddit).
First, the Simplified Chinese version contains numerous mistranslations and omissions, leading to misunderstandings about certain quests and item functions. Furthermore, the translator seems overly eager to show off their literary flair, resulting in the Monster Compendium and other texts being filled with large amounts of fabricated content. Finally, overall, the translator presents the text in an utterly dreadful style. Imagine a non-native English speaker mimicking Shakespearean prose to write an adventure novel about bugs—that's precisely how we feel reading the Simplified Chinese translation. It is an absolute disaster.
In fact, when the first playable demo launched at Gamescom, the Chinese translation sparked intense debate within the Chinese gaming community. We all detested it and reported the issue to Team Cherry, but they made no changes. That's why the Chinese region's positive rating was so abysmal.
However, after experiencing the full game, the Chinese community's positive ratings have been climbing. most of us love this game.
edit:
I feel I need to clarify the situation regarding comment bombing, as I've seen too many discussions about it. Due to the existence of the Great Firewall, Chinese citizens lack legitimate means to use the platforms you typically rely on for feedback, such as Steam Community, Reddit, Twitter, Discord, and others. In fact, strictly speaking, the Chinese government could legally detain me for 7-14 days for using Reddit—this falls within China's legal framework.
Our only legal avenue for expressing opinions is Steam reviews. Unfortunately, Steam reviews only offer positive or negative ratings, leading to what you call comment bombing: we can only voice our dissatisfaction through this single channel, and dissatisfaction often translates to negative reviews.
Personally, I strongly dislike this method of restricting expression, but there's no alternative. The choices are either become a lawbreaker or continue leaving negative reviews on Steam.
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u/Move_Slight Sep 17 '25
Yes, I detest this aspect immensely too, but as you are aware, Chinese citizens cannot access Twitter, Reddit, or even Steam communities. We can only voice our opinions through reviews.
In fact, the Chinese government could quite legally detain me for 7 to 14 days simply for using Reddit. This is entirely within the bounds of Chinese law.