Website:unitygametranslator.asymptomatikgames.com — browse game translations · user documentation
A mod that players install into any Unity game to play it in their language — the game doesn't need to support it, and the developer doesn't need to do anything. Use translations shared by the community, or translate live with your own AI: a free local server (Ollama, LM Studio — Vulkan covers NVIDIA, AMD and Intel GPUs) if your machine can run the game and the model together, or any OpenAI-compatible online provider (Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, OpenRouter…), Google Translate or DeepL with your own key. Fully offline with a local AI: no API key, no internet, no cost. Supports all writing systems and any language direction.
This README covers the technical side (installation details, configuration, self-hosting, building). For the user guide — setup wizard, editors, collaboration, troubleshooting — see the documentation on the website.
- Runtime translation — text is translated as you encounter it in-game
- Multiple backends — community downloads only, free local AI, or online services with your own key (OpenAI-compatible providers, Google Translate, DeepL)
- Instant cache hits — cached translations apply synchronously with zero latency
- Number normalization — "Kill 5 enemies" and "Kill 10 enemies" share the same translation
- Auto language detection — detects system language as default target
- Cross-platform — Windows, macOS, Linux
| Backend | Description |
|---|---|
| AI (LLM) | Any OpenAI-compatible server — local or cloud (Ollama, LM Studio, Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and any other compatible provider) |
| Google Translate | Google Cloud Translation API |
| DeepL | DeepL API (Free and Pro tiers) |
| None | Only use cached/downloaded translations |
- In-game text editor — click any UI element, edit its texts in place (saved with the Human tag), or retranslate them with AI. Found in Translation Tools → Tools → Start Text Editor
- Browser live edit — open your local translation file in a full web editor while playing: search & replace, filters, quality bar, keyboard review. Every save is hot-reloaded in-game, and new AI translations appear in the browser as you play. No account needed, nothing is published
- Private AI retranslation from the browser — the website only calls your mod, which translates with your own locally-configured backend. No API key or LLM configuration ever reaches the website
- Automatic font detection (TextMeshPro, Unity UI.Text)
- Fallback fonts for any writing system — Latin, CJK, Arabic, Devanagari, Cyrillic, Thai, Hebrew, and more
- Per-font scaling and enable/disable
- Font overrides by pattern — override size for specific UI elements (tables, titles, tooltips)
- Add overrides via inspector click, text search, or manual pattern
- Supports recursive patterns (
path:**/TablePanel/**) - Changes apply at runtime
- Pattern-based exclusion system for text that shouldn't be translated (chat, player names, etc.)
- Visual inspector to click and exclude elements
- Find by text content search
- Wildcard patterns (
**/ChatPanel/**,*/PlayerName)
- Replace text embedded in sprites/images with translated versions
- Visual inspector to select and export original images
- Import translated images as replacement
- Sprite metadata (pivot, borders, PPU) preserved
- Extract player name, item stats, and other dynamic values from game objects
- Placeholder substitution for better cache reuse
- Variable scanner to discover candidates
- Community translations — download game translations from the website
- Automatic game detection — via Steam ID, product name, or folder
- Real-time sync via SSE (Server-Sent Events) — get updates without restarting
- 3-way merge — intelligently merge remote updates with your local changes
- Device Flow login — secure authentication without entering passwords in-game
- Upload & share — share your translations with the community
- Mod update checker — notifications when a new mod version is available; stable releases by default, opt-in for beta (pre-release) builds
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Main | The reference translation, owned by its creator and public on the website. |
| Branch | Your improvements to someone else's Main, sent to the owner for review. One per user per UUID. |
| Fork | Your own independent translation (new lineage): you become its Main owner, no longer linked to the original. |
Upload behavior:
| Situation | Result |
|---|---|
| UUID doesn't exist on server | Creates new Main |
| UUID exists, you're the owner | Updates your Main |
| UUID exists, owned by someone else | Creates your Branch (the owner reviews and merges) |
| "Create Independent" / Fork in the mod | New UUID → new Main owned by you |
| Tag | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| H | Human | Written by a human |
| V | Validated | Machine wording a human read and accepted |
| A | AI | Machine wording nobody has read yet |
| S | Skip | A human ruled that this line stays as it is — a fictional language, a proper name, text that must not change. Counts as settled, never as work left to do |
| M | Mod | Mod UI translations (internal, never counted) |
The mod shows a review stage rather than a mark — (H + V + S) / (H + V + S + A), read as
"machine translation / review started / well under way / fully reviewed". Every translation begins
as machine output, which is a starting point and not a failing grade, so there is no scale ending
at "excellent" to fall short of. A file with nothing translated has no stage at all.
The full set of measures, and who sees each, is published at /docs.
Capture Keys Only mode — play without translating, capture all text, then translate manually on the website for 100% human translations.
- First-run wizard — guided setup on first launch
- Settings hotkey — F10 (configurable) opens the full settings panel
- Translation info — H/V/A/S distribution, review stage, lines left to review, sync status
- Translation Tools — tabs for Tools (editors), Exclusions, Fonts (Global + Overrides), Images, Variables
- Merge panel — resolve conflicts with per-entry Keep Mine / Take Server choices
- Status overlay — corner notifications for updates, sync, and AI queue
Note: Only text displayed during gameplay is translated. Play through the game to build the translation cache.
| Mod Loader | Unity Type | Download |
|---|---|---|
| BepInEx 5 | Mono | GitHub |
| BepInEx 6 | Mono or IL2CPP | Bleeding Edge |
| MelonLoader | Mono or IL2CPP | GitHub |
How to identify your game type:
GameAssembly.dllin game folder → IL2CPP<Game>_Data/Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll→ Mono
Cross-platform: The mod's DLLs are .NET assemblies that work on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Download the release matching your mod loader from GitHub Releases and extract to:
| Mod Loader | Extract DLLs to | User data (config, translations, fonts, images) |
|---|---|---|
| BepInEx | <Game>/BepInEx/plugins/UnityGameTranslator/ | Same folder as the DLL |
| MelonLoader | <Game>/Mods/ (DLLs directly, no subfolder) | <Game>/UserData/UnityGameTranslator/ |
MelonLoader warning: Do NOT place the DLLs inside
Mods/UnityGameTranslator/. MelonLoader only scans the rootMods/folder and will not find mods inside subdirectories.
The mod displays a setup wizard:
- Online mode — enable community features or stay offline
- Settings hotkey — pick a key to open settings (default: F10)
- Translation search — search for existing community translations
- AI setup — configure translation backend and model (optional)
By default, the mod only uses cached/downloaded translations. To enable live translation:
The mod works with any server that exposes the OpenAI-compatible API (/v1/chat/completions). This includes local servers, cloud providers, and an ever-growing list of AI platforms.
Examples (non-exhaustive):
| Server | URL to enter | API key |
|---|---|---|
| Ollama (local) | http://localhost:11434 | None |
| LM Studio (local) | http://localhost:1234 | None |
| Groq | https://api.groq.com/openai | Required (free tier) |
| OpenRouter | https://openrouter.ai/api | Required (free tier) |
| OpenAI | https://api.openai.com | Required |
| Google Gemini | https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/openai/chat/completions | Required (free tier) |
URL resolution: The mod auto-appends
/v1/chat/completionsif the URL doesn't already end with/completions. If your provider has a non-standard URL, enter the full path up to/chat/completions.
| Provider | Description |
|---|---|
| Google Translate | Cloud Translation API |
| DeepL | Free and Pro tiers |
Setup: Open the mod panel (F10) → Mod Options → Translation tab → select backend → enter URL/key → Test → Enable.
Recommended local model:
qwen3:8b— best balance of speed, quality, and multilingual support (~6-8 GB VRAM).
Config file location:
- BepInEx:
<Game>/BepInEx/plugins/UnityGameTranslator/config.json - MelonLoader:
<Game>/UserData/UnityGameTranslator/config.json
Translation cache: translations.json in the same folder.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
translation_backend | "llm", "google", "deepl", or "none" |
target_language | "auto" (system language) or specific (e.g., "French") |
game_context | Game description for better AI translations (e.g., "Medieval fantasy RPG") |
settings_hotkey | Key to open settings (default: "F10") |
online_mode | Enable community features (sync, upload) |
sync.merge_strategy | "ask", "merge", or "replace" |
UnityGameTranslator can use custom fonts and replacement images to improve translation quality — especially useful for languages with characters not supported by the game's default font, or when translating text baked into images (logos, buttons, title screens).
Where to place external resources:
| Mod Loader | Fonts folder | Images folder |
|---|---|---|
| BepInEx | <Game>/BepInEx/plugins/UnityGameTranslator/fonts/ | <Game>/BepInEx/plugins/UnityGameTranslator/images/ |
| MelonLoader | <Game>/UserData/UnityGameTranslator/fonts/ | <Game>/UserData/UnityGameTranslator/images/ |
Custom fonts — drop .ttf or .otf files into the fonts/ folder. The filename (without extension) becomes the font name shown in the Translation Parameters panel. Assign per UI element or globally.
Replacement images — drop .png files (with transparency) into the images/ folder. Use the in-game image capture feature to export existing sprites, edit them externally, then save the modified versions back.
External resources are fully optional. The mod works perfectly without them.
Deploy your own website instance, then update Directory.Build.props before building:
<ApiBaseUrl>https://your-server.com/api/v1</ApiBaseUrl>
<WebsiteBaseUrl>https://your-server.com</WebsiteBaseUrl>
<SseBaseUrl>https://sse.your-server.com</SseBaseUrl>Or override at runtime in config.json:
{
"api_base_url": "https://your-server.com/api/v1",
"website_base_url": "https://your-server.com"
}Security: Your API token is sent to the configured server. Only use trusted instances.
- .NET SDK 6.0+
extlibs/folder with Unity, BepInEx, MelonLoader, and UniverseLib DLLs (see project structure)
./prepare-release.ps1Creates release zips in releases/ for all 5 mod loader variants.
UnityGameTranslator/
├── UnityGameTranslator.Core/ # Shared translation engine
│ ├── TranslatorCore.cs # Main logic, config, translation cache
│ ├── TranslatorPatches.cs # Harmony patches for text interception
│ ├── TranslatorScanner.cs # Scene scanning for UI components
│ ├── FontManager.cs # Font detection, replacement, scaling, overrides
│ ├── ImageReplacer.cs # Sprite/image replacement for bitmap text
│ ├── VariableManager.cs # Dynamic variable extraction
│ ├── ApiClient.cs # HTTP client for website API
│ ├── SseClient.cs # SSE streaming for real-time sync
│ ├── TranslationMerger.cs # 3-way merge with tag awareness
│ ├── GameDetector.cs # Game identification (Steam ID, product name)
│ ├── GitHubUpdateChecker.cs # Mod version update checker
│ ├── TokenProtection.cs # AES-256 token encryption
│ └── UI/ # UniverseLib uGUI overlay
│ ├── Panels/ # 12 panels (wizard, settings, merge, inspector...)
│ └── Components/ # Reusable UI components
├── UniverseLib/ # Git submodule (yukieiji fork)
├── UnityGameTranslator-BepInEx5/ # BepInEx 5 adapter (Mono)
├── UnityGameTranslator-BepInEx6-Mono/ # BepInEx 6 adapter (Mono)
├── UnityGameTranslator-BepInEx6-IL2CPP/# BepInEx 6 adapter (IL2CPP)
├── UnityGameTranslator-MelonLoader-Mono/ # MelonLoader adapter (Mono)
├── UnityGameTranslator-MelonLoader-IL2CPP/ # MelonLoader adapter (IL2CPP)
└── Directory.Build.props # Version + API URLs
- UniverseLib by sinai-dev & yukieiji — UI framework for Unity mods
- BepInEx — Unity plugin framework
- MelonLoader by LavaGang — Universal Unity mod loader
- Harmony by Andreas Pardeike — Runtime method patching
- Newtonsoft.Json by James Newton-King — JSON framework
See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md for full license details.
Dual-licensed:
- Open Source:AGPL-3.0
- Commercial: Contact us for proprietary use
See LICENSING.md for details.