Video game localization as homecoming in "Total war. Three kingdoms"

Studying video game localisation from a translation perspective is an approach that has been gaining impetus since the early 2010s, with a number of studies focusing on aspects such as translation strategies or cultural adaptation. This article examines video game localisation as ‘homecoming’ in the game Total War: Three Kingdoms by comparing the differences between the text assets in the English and Chinese versions of the game, as well as the original Chinese novel San Guo Yan Yi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and related Chinese works. The article examines the hidden indirectness in this localisation in relation to four aspects: the number of languages involved, the complexity of the mediating texts, the participants, and the medium and multimodality of the game. It also emphasises the need to extend the traditional understanding of indirect translation to include the localisation of video games adapted from classic works.