Ubisoft in-house titles to receive subtitles

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 10th 2008 at 10:50AM }

Ubisoft has announced plans to add subtitles to all of the company's internally developed games and thus make them more accessible. The first games to include the subtitles are Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia and Shaun White Snowboarding (most of which will be covered by various iterations of "Woah!"). With any luck, the subtitles will extend to a game's sound effects and other audio cues.

The first title to boast this feature will be Far Cry 2, due on Oct. 21.

Tags: closed-captioning, deaf, hard-of-hearing, subtitles, ubisoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eric @ Sep 10th 2008 10:57AM

Just let me turn them off and I don't mind.

Tiptup300 @ Sep 10th 2008 12:00PM

As long as they will automatically be timed correctly I'll be happy. I love subtitles.

Alex @ Sep 10th 2008 3:31PM

I like them sometimes...
Ninja Gaiden II is better in spoken japanese with english subs. Feels more authentic.

Haggard (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 10th 2008 11:01AM

One advantage of being a deaf gamer - you don't have to pay for surround sound or a sound card.

Tiptup300 @ Sep 10th 2008 11:46AM

One advantage of being a smart pc gamer:

You realize most mobos come with great onboard audio.

kaneda @ Sep 11th 2008 11:22AM

But a deaf person would not be able to realize how great onboard sound cards are, would he? Once again, someone confuses deaf with dumb. Which are you Tiptup?

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Sep 12th 2008 3:08AM

What's your opinion on rumble?

mattclarkie @ Sep 10th 2008 11:01AM

I'm fairly sure that subtitles have been on 90% of all PS2, Xbox, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. If not on by default atleast an option.

mattclarkie @ Sep 10th 2008 11:03AM

Or atleast the games I play. I often have them on as sometimes you can't hear the dialogue over the sound effects.

thesimplicity @ Sep 10th 2008 11:32AM

Assassin's Creed, a Ubisoft title which was *heavy* with dialog, offered no subtitle options whatsoever... making it impossible to play if you're hard of hearing. Surprising, considering the amount hype and money behind the game.

Phillip @ Sep 10th 2008 11:43AM

@TheSimplicity

Exactly. I was about to leave a comment about how nice it would've been to have subtitles in Assassin's Creed (especially nice for late-night gaming). Instead, I'm leaving this comment about your comment while still slipping in a remnant of my original would-be comment. How clever is that?

mattclarkie @ Sep 10th 2008 11:04AM

Or atleast the games I play. I often have them on as sometimes you can't hear the dialogue over the sound effects.

AwesomeTown @ Sep 10th 2008 12:03PM

I do the same thing. Not only because of in game sound effects, but also the sound of my fiancee talking on the phone.

gavin @ Sep 10th 2008 11:09AM

hopefully they'll do something for colorblind gamers like myself

j.howlett @ Sep 10th 2008 11:18AM

the joystick podcast crew said they were making a game for the color blind to put on xbla

Alex @ Sep 10th 2008 3:35PM

How would it work without putting electrodes in your eyes?

BananaBoat @ Sep 10th 2008 11:17AM

I know why they are doing it (to prevent the inevitable lawsuit over accessibility) but it's nice that they are making it a standard. Even though I'm not deaf, I can still see this being a good thing for people that want to play at night when people are sleeping, and don't have headphones (yeah, I know, that market is probably slim, but whatever).

Good show Ubi.

Dirty @ Sep 10th 2008 11:24AM

Yea late night explosions dont go over too well at my house. I probably should rig up some headphones, but this would be a nice alternative.

kaneda @ Sep 10th 2008 11:19AM

At first (before I RTFA) I was thinking they meant subtitles, as in qualifiers following the title and a colon.

You know, like, "Far Cry 2: Cry Farer".

Daniel @ Sep 10th 2008 11:56AM

Same thing here. I thought it was "subtitles" like "Prince of Persia: Paintbrush World", or "Shaun White Snowboarding: Why?"

Good thing I RTFA or I'd feel like a silly goose.

Pureshooter @ Sep 10th 2008 11:28AM

Seems like a good idea.

(Seems like a good idea.)

J @ Sep 10th 2008 12:33PM

+1 good sir!

[continuous ambient cricket chirps]

Dan @ Sep 10th 2008 12:05PM

Well this stinks. I HATE subtitles. Im surprised everyone else is for them. I dont want to see little lines of text to distract me from the game. My excitement for Far Cray 2 just went down 10% from this fact alone. If they are putting them in, they should be off by default and if you want them, you should have to turn them on like closed captioning

nightmare452 @ Sep 10th 2008 12:25PM

I'm positive that this will be optional. I do hope they aren't obligatory, but I would prefer to have them on that not have the option.

This is merely a followup to the Assassins Creed problem of not including subtitle. So don't worry, this will almost 100% be optional, but now the are guaranteed to be there for those that want them.

dark_inchworm @ Sep 10th 2008 12:25PM

WAH

Steven @ Sep 10th 2008 11:40AM

Valve already does this with Half-life 2. Like when you fire a gun with closed captions on it shows [gunshot] or [pain noise]. It also offers regular subtitles.

Alex @ Sep 10th 2008 3:37PM

Subs on Portal are fantastic.

"I know you're still there..."

"I don't blame you..."

Erluti @ Sep 10th 2008 11:43AM

I hope the subtitles aren't white, because in Shaun White Snowboarding we might end up with some "Austin Powers 3"-type moments.

Dangit, why did I admit to seeing that film...

Haggard (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 10th 2008 1:57PM

Hey man, I've got that thing on my shelf!

Philo @ Sep 10th 2008 12:23PM

Not sure why this is making the news, as many companies include subtitles de facto in all their games. Ubisoft just couldn't be bothered to do it in the past, and now that they're correcting that mistake, they're trying to act like they're benefactors to the deaf community or something.

Still, good thing they're finally catching up to the rest of the industry.

e168 @ Sep 10th 2008 12:35PM

This is excellent. Totally agree that Assassin's Creed should have had subtitles, as should all games - with the option to turn them on or off at will.

I found it very surprising that RE4 had no subtitles for the main game, but they did show up in the conversations with Hunnigan.

J @ Sep 10th 2008 12:39PM

If only we could get audio to go along w/ the microscopic white text in games like Dead Rising & Ghost Recon etc...

Ethan @ Sep 10th 2008 1:05PM

Good on them, but they should be doing this already.

Antagonist @ Sep 10th 2008 1:34PM

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH?

a_roast_chicken @ Sep 11th 2008 8:28AM

No, nobody understands the words that are coming out of yo mouth, man!

Desolation @ Sep 10th 2008 1:41PM

YES! About time. Being deaf, I have been disappointed so many times by Ubisoft for not putting subtitles into so many of their games. Great news.

Professor Lario @ Sep 10th 2008 3:25PM

Great idea, as long as I can turn them off.

Patrick @ Sep 10th 2008 4:02PM

This is good news. In The Sands of Time (GameCube version), the voices were at a much lower volume than the sound effects and music, and with no subtitles it was highly annoying.

joe @ Sep 11th 2008 12:44AM

I love subtitles because often times it's the only way I can find out what a character is saying in a video game due to the fact that most game developers still haven't figured out how to balance the vocal, music, and sound fx tracks properly.

Deaf RaGe @ Sep 11th 2008 7:29AM

Meh, I'll believe it when I see it. No wonder I own zero Ubisoft titles.

a_roast_chicken @ Sep 11th 2008 9:24AM

Yeah, the decision to purchase a game is based SOLELY on whether it has subtitles or not for me too.

kaneda @ Sep 11th 2008 11:19AM

Well, I was gonna reply with an "OOOOH! ZING!" to roast chicken's comment, but then I realized that 'Deaf RaGe' could perhaps be the handle of a person that is, in fact, deaf, in which case, the decision for him to purchases a game actually would be dependent on whether of not it had subtitles.

Deaf RaGe @ Sep 12th 2008 7:57AM

I am actually deaf. If I'm gonna get 60 squids out of my wallet for a game, I want to, AT LEAST, understand the story. It's pointless for me to own a non-subtitled game, just like it would be pointless for me to own a non-subtitled movie.

deafnyc @ Sep 11th 2008 9:14PM

THAT'S BETTER! yep good thing for UBISOFT put on optional on or off. Because like DVD/blu-ray had already NEW English SDH-subtitle 110% better than old closed captioning. Maybe other the company game need realize what valve and ubisoft have development English SDH-subtitle right now.

deafnyc @ Sep 11th 2008 10:03PM

But I waiting for see downloaded movie without subtitle and XBL/PSN Multiplayer (online without subtitle) Why those Players vs Players voice (non-voice to players text) like pop txt msg? that's right? I need new feature option I told you joystiq! FAIR TO FAIR!