Nihon Falcom, Developer of 'Trails' and 'Ys' Series, Considering AI for Their Games

Amid the growing fears of AI taking crucial jobs in the games industry, Falcom seems to be considering using AI to expedite localization.

By Dwayne Jenkins

Falcom, a Japanese game developer known for the Trails and Ys series, is reported to be considering AI in their games. Per 4Gamer, the outlet spoke to Nihon Falcom President, Kondo Toshihiro. The main topic of their discussion was ELLA, a game-specific AI translation engine. Reportedly, ELLA is meant to make the localization process faster.

At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, 4Gamer tested ELLA using lines from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of the World. The resulting effects were lines among a mixture of English, Japanese, and Chinese translations. Afterward, the outlet interviewed Toshihiro about ELLA and Falcom’s potential plans for it. First, they spoke about ELLA’s translation accuracy.

“As seen in the translation of Crow’s lines, while there are times when they get the subtleties wrong, there are also times when they translate so well that you are shocked and think, ‘That’s exactly how it is,’” Toshihiro commented. “Although there are still some areas where it is not as good as humans. I can’t help but think that it is an amazing technology compared to a long time ago.”

Then, 4Gamer touched upon the overall negative reception within and outside the games industry regarding AI taking people’s jobs. “Personally, I think that if the trend in the world is to use AI, it is inevitable,” Toshihiro responds. “I also lived in Thailand as a child. And I was taught that there was a time when people thought that the Japanese brought in all sorts of things. And took away jobs from the local people. I think it’s natural that people would start thinking like that.”

Reportedly, the intent seems to be using ELLA to do one pass through a script with people coming in to make corrections afterward. It’s believed that ideally, this could cut the localization process down to six months. Or, it’s implied, having the process done in one day.

Understandably, this has sent shockwaves throughout the internet. Personally, I’ll come right out and say it — it seems like there are few long-term positives. ELLA apparently still can’t come close to humans in accuracy. While the “making the localization process quicker” point is understandable, it sounds like there’s still a major human cost. “Faster” often doesn’t translate to “better.” I have to side with the people who are rightfully against what this could mean for the industry at large.

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