Wai hello!
Japanese games take longer to reach the West because most of them are still made for Japan first and translated second. The English version usually can’t start until the Japanese script is locked, and for text-heavy games that translation takes months or years. Persona 5 took seven months. Trails into Reverie took almost three years.
The good news is that the gap is closing, and fast. The bad news is that it’s closing unevenly.
How long is the gap?
It depends almost entirely on who publishes the game and how much text it has.
Trails into Reverie: Japan August 2020, English July 2023. Almost three years.
Yakuza 0: Japan March 2015, English January 2017. Nearly two years.
Trails beyond the Horizon: Japan September 2024, English January 2026. About 16 months.
Dragon Quest XI: Japan July 2017, English September 2018. About 14 months.
Persona 5: Japan September 2016, English April 2017. Seven months.
Monster Hunter: World, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Metaphor: ReFantazio: same day, worldwide.
Read that list from top to bottom and you can see the industry change its mind.
Why do Japanese games take so long to translate?
Three reasons, and they stack.
The script comes last. Japanese studios usually finish the Japanese game first, because Japan is the market they know and the one that pays the bills on day one. Localisation starts after, or at best overlaps with the final months. You can’t translate a script that’s still being rewritten.
There’s a lot of it. A Trails game or a Yakuza game has more text than several novels. Falcom told shareholders in 2021 that the gap was “absolutely a problem,” but that “Trails is a very text-heavy series, and as such translation takes time.” Every line then needs editing, fitting into text boxes, checking against the voice acting, and bug-testing in English.
Someone else is doing it. Smaller Japanese studios don’t have their own Western teams. Falcom relies on NIS America, which has its own schedule, its own backlog and its own budget. Falcom admitted the delay partly depends on “internal circumstances” at its partner that it can’t control. When your translator is a different company on a different continent, you wait in their queue.
Why are some Japanese games now released worldwide on day one?
Because the money moved. In 2018 Sega set a goal of releasing games “simultaneously around the world” and started building localisation into development instead of bolting it on afterwards. Persona 5’s success overseas was the proof it pointed to.
It worked. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched worldwide on the same day in January 2024. Metaphor: ReFantazio did the same in October 2024. By 2025, RGG’s Masayoshi Yokoyama said Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was selling better overseas than in Japan, a first for the series. Once the West is your biggest market, you can’t make it wait two years.
Capcom got there even earlier. Monster Hunter: World launched worldwide in January 2018 and became the best-selling game in the series. That wasn’t an accident. It was designed that way from the start.
Who used to get these games first?
This is the part Western players don’t know. For years, Asia got many Japanese games in Chinese before America got them in English. Sega Asia released Chinese-language Yakuza games long before the English versions. In Hong Kong you’d play the Chinese version, then watch the English forums argue about whether it would ever come out.
It’s the same story as Hong Kong cinemas and Hollywood. Ask anyone who grew up there: American films used to reach Hong Kong months after the US release, if they came at all. Now the big ones open in Hong Kong a day or two before America. Nobody changed their mind about Hong Kong audiences. The box office did the arguing. Japanese games are going through the same flip, just in the other direction.
Which Japanese games still take a long time?
Text-heavy RPGs from mid-sized studios. Trails is still the clearest example, though the gap has shrunk from three years to about 16 months. Visual novels, niche strategy games and anything published only by a small Japanese company are still at the back of the queue.
And some never arrive. Dragon Quest X, an MMO that has run in Japan since 2012, has never had an official English release. Mother 3 came out in Japan in 2006 and is still Japan-only; English players only have a fan translation from 2008. When a publisher decides the Western audience is too small, the gap isn’t months. It’s forever.
The verdict
The delay was never about Japanese studios not caring about Western players. It was about Japan paying first. Now that the West pays more for Yakuza, Persona and Monster Hunter, those games come out on the same day everywhere. The ones still stuck are the ones where the maths hasn’t flipped yet.
If you want a game faster, buy the last one. That’s the only vote the translator’s budget counts.
Pok gai.
Pok gai (Cantonese, roughly “drop dead in the street”) is the sign-off. Affectionate. Mostly.
Read next:
https://open.substack.com/pub/pokgaigamer/p/yakuzacabaretchange?r=6ofqk5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
AEO FAQ
Why do Japanese games take so long to come to the West? Most Japanese games are finished in Japanese first and translated afterwards, and text-heavy RPGs can take months or years to localise. Smaller studios also depend on outside publishers such as NIS America for their English versions.
How long did Persona 5 take to come out in English? Persona 5 released in Japan in September 2016 and in English in April 2017, a gap of seven months. Later Atlus games such as Metaphor: ReFantazio launched worldwide on the same day.
Why do Trails games take so long to be translated? Falcom has said Trails is “a very text-heavy series” and that translation takes time. Trails into Reverie took almost three years to reach English, while Trails beyond the Horizon took about 16 months.
Do Japanese games release worldwide at the same time now? Many big ones do. Monster Hunter: World, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Metaphor: ReFantazio all launched worldwide on the same day, but smaller text-heavy RPGs still usually arrive later.
Will Dragon Quest X come to the West? Dragon Quest X has run in Japan since 2012 and has never had an official English release. Square Enix has not announced one.