Translations of Ultima VIII

After many games that were either not translated, or sometime a long time after the original release, Ultima VIII was one of the first Origin game to be released simultanously in multiple languages.

The German translation


The game was fully translated by Electronic Arts to German, including all in-game voices and the Speech Pack as well.

The documentation was completely translated as well. The Chronicle of Pagan has the German title Die Chronik von Pagan.


 * Watch the German Ultima VIII Intro



The French translation


The game was also fully translated to Electronic Arts by Origin. Unlike Ultima VII, the entire translation of both the game and the manual was done by a single translator named Betty Peltier-Weber which had also worked on the french translation of Ultima VII. Interestingly while the original version of Ultima VIII used modern english, the translator choose to use "Old French" much like it was used in Ultima VII in order to give to the game a more medieval flavor. The concept was even put to the point of having the few actors record their lines in old french as well, whereas in Ultima VII the Guardian used moderne french.

Peltier-Weber received a lot of praise for the quality of her translation in many reviews, some magazines even going as far as doing a full feature about the translation process of Ultima VIII.

The documentation was translated as well, and The Chronicle of Pagan has the French title Les Chroniques de Pagan. While the game box remained the same as the american release, the french CD-Version actually didn't get the specific

The voices were all translated and dubbed as well, required players to either buy the french version of the speech pack of the CD release. Altough Jean-Marc Chemla returned as the voice of the Guardian, none of the other voice actors were professional comedians either. For instance, Khumash-Gor actor Jean-Pierre Demessant had landed the role after winning a contest in the french videogame magazine Joystick. This lead to mixed reaction from many reviews, some of which felt the acting sounded unprofessional.


 * Watch the French Ultima VIII Intro



The Spanish translation
The game was also fully translated to Spanish with the game manual renamed "La Crónica de Pagan"

The voice of the Guardian in this translation was the most similar one to the English version.

Other Languages
There was also a Japanese translation. While text and documentation were translated toJapanese, the voices remained in English.

The Taiwanese and Italian editions had translated the documentation, but the game itself remained in English.