Pentiment game director Josh Sawyer had said Obsidian intends to credit localization staff who worked on the title after it was highlighted that the current roll call doesn’t include any of those names.
The issue was raised by Ustwo senior game designer Hayden Scott-Baron, who noted that although Pentiment’s credits (rightly) include niche contributions such as an Italian hand gesture consultant, they seem to exclude all of the localization staff whose work allowed Obsidian to launch the RPG in multiple languages.
In response to that tweet, which quickly gained traction, Sawyer said that Obsidian didn’t forget to credit those workers, but rather wasn’t provided a list of names by its localization partners in time for launch.
“We did not forget them, but thank you for noticing that they aren’t there,” said Sawyer. “We asked for lists of translator names for all languages through our partners and did not receive those lists prior to launch. We have asked again and will patch them in as soon as we have them.”
The back-and-forth caused prompted other developers to weigh in on the issue, with many sharing stories about how they also struggled to learn the names of the specific translators who worked on their projects in a bid to credit them.
Other commenters, however, suggested studios – especially those with as much influence as Obsidian, which is owned by industry giant Microsoft – should be actively avoiding localization companies with a history of keeping the names of their workers under wraps.
Indeed, Scott-Baron thanked Sawyer for his reply but suggested that “excluding amounts the same as forgetting” because those who aren’t credited at launch are likely to miss being added to video game databases such as MobyGames.
This isn’t the first time a major studio has been accused of failing to credit workers. Last week, a composer who worked on God of War: Ragnarok said her name was omitted from the game’s credits by Santa Monica Studio, and in October 2021 Metroid Dread developer MercurySteam was called but by multiple developers for refusing to acknowledge their work on the project.
Game Developer has reached out to Microsoft and Obsidian for comment on the situation.