Windows & Linux desktop · Japanese, Chinese, Korean & 30+ languages
Translate any game. Any language. No limits.
RuneTranslate reads RPG Maker, Ren’Py, Kirikiri, Wolf RPG, Unity and more — extracts the script, translates it with your provider of choice, and rebuilds a playable game. Built for Japanese first, and it translates Chinese, Korean, English and 30 more source languages too.
Here is one real line of Japanese, followed the whole way through — read out of the script, frozen, translated, put back, and written into a file the game loads.
ユキ
「待って、行かないで……」
▼
before · the game as shipped
→
Yuki
“Wait — don’t go…”
▼
after · the build you exported
Lines translated
350.1M
lines of game text translated by RuneTranslate users so far
264 active users in the last 24 hours
18
Game engines
10
Providers
35
Target languages
100%
Runs on your PC
Tracing
1 / 18
1
Detect the engine
engine-specific
Detection reads the shape of the folder, not its name — which is why renamed and repacked releases still open. This one is Ren’Py, because RuneTranslate found game/ · .rpy / .rpyc / .rpa.
2
Unpack it
engine-specific
Opened with unrpyc + rpatool. Whatever it needs ships inside the app — nothing is fetched at runtime. Work happens in a per-project workspace under userData/, and your game folder is never modified.
3
Parse it into units
same for all 18 engines
Dialogue, menu choices and UI strings become translation units. classifyUnit separates prose from code-like operands, so an asset path or a comparison key becomes a red opt-in row rather than being silently translated — translating a lookup key is how a game gets a translation and stops working.
4
Freeze the markup
engine-specific
This engine's markup is replaced by [[R#]] before anything leaves your machine. Watch where the tags sit: inside the sentence. The mask is not a wrapper around the outside of the line.
in
「{i}待って{w=0.4}、行かないで{/i}……」
sent
「[[R0]]待って[[R1]]、行かないで[[R2]]……」
5
Translate
same for all 18 engines
Sent in batches and retried on failure. Exact repeats are answered from translation memory instead of the provider, and short strings can be routed somewhere cheap while dialogue goes somewhere good. The machine never sees the tags — so it cannot mangle, drop or translate them.
back
「[[R0]]Wait[[R1]] — don’t go[[R2]]……」
6
Restore and export
engine-specific
Every placeholder goes back to its exact position, then this engine's own artifact is written and the game loads it on launch.
out
「{i}Wait{w=0.4} — don’t go{/i}……」
game/rt_translations.json
Video walkthrough
See RuneTranslate in action
Watch a Japanese game go from start to finish — open it, auto-detect the engine, translate with the provider you choose, and export a playable build in your language.
18 engines, one workflow
Insert your game. Pick a cartridge.
Every engine is unlocked on the free tier. Status is honest — green is rebuilt-and-played, amber is best-effort.
Full
RPG Maker MV / MZ / XP / VX / Ace
Translate RPG Maker MV, MZ and the older Ruby-based XP / VX / Ace end-to-end — dialogue, database, item names, plugin strings.
data/*.jsoneventsplugins
Full
Ren'Py
Translate source, compiled (.rpyc) and archived (.rpa) Ren'Py visual novels.
Send short menu strings to Google and narrative to Claude — automatically, with provider routing.
RuneLingua
RuneTranslate’s own machine translation, running on our GPU. No API key and no account with anyone else: included with Supporter, Pro and Ultimate, metered by a monthly character quota. 35 languages.
Included with Supporter & Pro
DeepL
High-quality JA→EN. Best balance for long dialogue. Use DeepL as your Japanese game translator backbone.
Free tier or Pro
DeepL (free)
Same DeepL quality with no API key and no account — serialized to stay inside the free endpoint’s limits.
Free, no key
DeepL Next-gen
Choose DeepL’s Classic or Next-gen model, still with no API key. The newest engine, free.
Free, no key
OpenAI (ChatGPT)
gpt-4o / o4-mini for context-aware translation of RPG Maker, Ren’Py, and visual novel scripts.
BYOK
Anthropic Claude
Strong on register, tone, and onomatopoeia. The best LLM for translating visual novel and RPG dialogue without losing voice.
BYOK
DeepSeek
OpenAI-compatible LLM translation at a fraction of the cost — deepseek-v4-flash / v4-pro. Context-aware quality for a few cents per game.
BYOK
Google Translate
No API key required. Fast and free; ideal for menu strings, choices, and item names via provider routing.
Free, no key
Local Model
Any OpenAI-compatible local server — Ollama or LM Studio. Runs fully offline on your own hardware; no API key, no per-token cost, nothing leaves your machine.
Free, self-hosted
OpenAI-Compatible API
Any hosted OpenAI-compatible service — OpenRouter, NanoGPT, and others. Bring your key + base URL (one-click presets) and pick from the provider’s live model list.
BYOK
New · Translation queue
Translate games while you sleep.
Line up several projects and RuneTranslate translates them back-to-back, unattended — wake up to finished games instead of babysitting one run at a time. A Supporter perk.
Set it and walk away
Pick your projects and a provider, press start, and the queue works through them one after another — no clicking between games. Your PC stays awake for the whole batch.
One failure won’t stop it
If a game hits a snag the queue notes it and moves on, so a single error never stalls the whole overnight batch. You get a notification when it’s done.
Refine each one too
Optionally run the AI refiner on every project right after it translates, for a cleaner first pass with zero extra clicks.
Scales with your plan
Supporters queue up to 10 games at once; Pro up to 30. Free translates one project at a time.
New · AI Connections
Let Claude Desktop translate inside your project.
Connect Claude Desktop to RuneTranslate and just talk to it — “find the untranslated lines,” “look up this character’s official name,” “translate the rest and keep the honorifics.” Claude researches the game with its own web search and writes the results straight back into your project. Browsing is free; the actions are a Supporter perk.
Connect Claude Desktop
One click installs a Desktop Extension into Claude Desktop. From then on you just talk to Claude about your projects — no copy-paste, no extra tools to run.
It researches the game
Claude uses its own web search to look up character names, items, and honorifics on the game’s wiki, then writes consistent translations straight back into your project.
Free forever · every engine unlocked
Pick a tier. Every engine & language, free.
Free unlocks every engine, provider and editor feature. Supporter, Pro and Ultimate add full-speed translation, RuneLingua, more projects, and pro tooling.
Step-by-step walkthroughs and provider comparisons from the people who built the extractors.
Answers
Frequently asked questions.
Quick answers about engines, providers, pricing, and what RuneTranslate actually does.
Does RuneTranslate have a save editor?
Yes — a built-in Save Editor. Drag in an RPG Maker MV (.rpgsave) or MZ (.rmmzsave) save and edit gold, party levels, HP / MP / EXP, variables, switches, and inventory in a structured editor (variable and switch names are pulled from the game). Ren’Py (.save) and TyranoBuilder (.sav) saves open in a generic variable editor. Edits auto-save and the original is backed up on the first change so you can revert. It’s free.
Does RuneTranslate have a cheat mode?
Yes. The Cheats tab injects a live in-game cheat menu into any RPG Maker MV / MZ or Ren’Py game you point it at — a hotkey-toggled overlay with add gold, godmode, full heal, no random encounters, and walk-through-walls, plus tabs that list and edit every game variable and switch. For Ren’Py it enables the developer console (Shift+O) and a live variable editor. It’s for offline single-player use, injects in place, and removes cleanly in one click. Free for everyone; a few advanced cheats are part of a paid plan.
Can RuneTranslate translate Ren’Py games?
Yes. Ren'Py source (.rpy), compiled (.rpyc), and archived (.rpa) games are all supported end-to-end. Compiled games are decompiled with the bundled unrpyc sidecar; .rpa archives are unpacked with rpatool. The translation applies at runtime via a content-match filter plus a forced language (with a bundled CJK / non-Latin font when needed), so it works even on compiled and archived games.
Does it work on Kirikiri XP3 visual novels?
Yes. RuneTranslate reads XP3 archives, including around 26 archive variants ported from GARbro, and emits loose files in scenario/ plus an AfterInit2.tjs path-priority hook — KrkrZ engines load the loose translated files ahead of the original XP3.
How do I translate a Wolf RPG game?
Point RuneTranslate at the .wolf game folder. The bundled UberWolfCli sidecar (MIT-licensed) unpacks and repacks the archive; it extracts dialogue from .mps map events and database .dat files (V3 games use a structural LZ4/UTF-8 parser). V2.x is stable; V3.x is provisional. Control-heavy lines that can't be safely rewritten are auto-reverted to the original to keep the build stable.
Can RuneTranslate translate Unity games?
Ready to try RuneTranslate?
Free tier unlocks every engine + every translation provider. Supporter ($3.99/mo) unlocks full speed.
translated
炎特攻
Fire special attack
Every engine, what opens it, and what it exports18
Engine
Opened with
Markup frozen as
What you export
Gettext (.po / .mo)
pure Rust
%s / {count}
compiled .mo catalog
RPG Maker MV / MZ / XP / VX / Ace
pure Rust · evbunpack when Enigma-packed
[[T#]]
patched data/*.json
Ren’Py
unrpyc + rpatool
[[R#]]
game/rt_translations.json
Kirikiri / KAG
pure Rust (XP3)
[[K#]]
patch.xp3 + AfterInit2.tjs
Wolf RPG
UberWolfCli
no markup to freeze
repacked .wolf + Game.exe
TyranoBuilder / TyranoScript
pure Rust
[[U#]]
translated .ks + chara_define.ks
Electron VN
pure Rust (asar)
[[U#]]
repacked app.asar
Unity
UnityPy + Il2CppDumper
[[U#]]
patched .assets / bundles
RPG Developer Bakin
Bakin sidecar (.NET)
no markup to freeze
Bakin LocalizeData
SRPG Studio
SRPG-ToolBox
no markup to freeze
repacked data.dts
NScripter / ONScripter
pure Rust
no markup to freeze
ready-to-run copy
Godot Engine
GDRE Tools
no markup to freeze
re-packed .pck
Artemis
pure Rust (.pfs)
no markup to freeze
root.pfs override patch
YU-RIS
pure Rust (.ypf)
[[Y#]]
loose .ybn override
AliceSoft System
pure Rust (.ald / .afa)
no markup to freeze
loose-file override
Unreal Engine 4 / 5
retoc · AES auto-recovered
[[E#]]
override _P.pak
LiveMaker / LiveNovel
pylivemaker
[[M#]]
repacked .exe (VFF)
GameMaker
pure Rust (data.win / game.unx / game.ios)
[[T#]]
rewritten data.win + language files + fonts
Browse free, act on a plan
Anyone can let Claude list and search their projects and glossary. Supporters unlock the actions: translate lines, build glossaries, run the engine, and export.
Stays on your PC
Off until you switch it on. Claude reaches RuneTranslate over a private local link guarded by a token only you hold — built on the open MCP standard.
Host a project, share an invite code, and translate with your team like a shared doc — live presence, a drag-to-select “blue box,” and a “translated by” credit on every line. Joining and translating is free; hosting is a Supporter perk.
Host & invite
Host a project on RuneTranslate and share an invite code — teammates join in one click. Hosting is a Supporter perk; joining and translating is free for everyone.
Edit together, live
Everyone works the same line list and each person’s changes show up for the others within a couple of seconds — like a shared doc, last edit wins.
Live presence
See who’s online, the line each person is editing, and the rows they have selected — plus a drag “blue box” to multi-select like a file manager.
Translated-by credit
Every translated line shows who did it, so your team always knows who handled what. Anyone with their own copy of the game can export the finished build.
Title screens, “New Game / Continue” buttons, HUD labels — the words no extractor can reach, because they are pixels rather than strings. Detect them, rebuild the artwork underneath, and typeset your translation back into the picture with real fonts.
Detect the text
One click finds every text area on an image and reads it, grouping the lines of a balloon into one block. Anything it misses you can box by hand — and any single box can be re-read on its own.
Translate like any line
Recognized text goes through the same provider you use for dialogue — DeepL, Google, OpenAI, Claude — and lands in the editor, where you can rewrite it to fit the space it has to sit in.
Clean and typeset
Paint over the original lettering and the art underneath is rebuilt — a real background, not a coloured patch. Then set font, size, alignment, outline and colour per box, vertical Japanese included.
Bake it back in
Export writes the translated image under its original filename so the game just loads it, and keeps the untouched original beside it.
Drag a save file in and edit it directly — no replaying to fix a missed flag or grind for gold. Edits auto-save, and your original is backed up on the first change so you can revert anytime. Free.
RPG Maker MV / MZ
A structured editor for .rpgsave / .rmmzsave — gold, party levels, HP / MP / EXP, variables, switches, and inventory. Variable and switch names are read straight from the game.
Ren’Py & TyranoBuilder
Edit Ren’Py store variables and TyranoBuilder f / sf game variables in a generic field editor — flip a flag or bump a counter without replaying hours of the game.
Backed up & reversible
Drag a save in and edits auto-save. The first change backs up the original so you can revert in one click. It can even translate Japanese variable names so you know what you’re editing.
Point the Cheats tab at any RPG Maker (MV/MZ) or Ren’Py game folder and inject a hotkey-toggled cheat menu in place — offline, single-player only, removable in one click. Free for everyone; a few advanced cheats are part of a paid plan.
RPG Maker overlay
A hotkey-toggled in-game menu: add 1000 gold, godmode, full heal, one-hit kill, no random encounters, and walk-through-walls. One plugin covers both MV and MZ.
Variables & switches
Tabs that list every game variable and switch — search by name or id, read live values, and set or toggle anything on the fly.
Ren’Py tools
Enables Ren’Py’s built-in developer console (Shift+O) plus a live store-variable editor screen, injected straight into the game.
Have your game text in CSV, JSON, PO (gettext) or XLIFF? Import it in the Developer tab, pick a source language and every target you want, and RuneTranslate creates a project per language and translates them automatically. Export each back in the same format — for any engine. Part of the Ultimate plan.
CSV, JSON, PO (gettext) or XLIFF — the formats Unity, Unreal, Godot, gettext and i18n frameworks already export. Any engine, your own text.
Every language at once
Pick one source and as many targets as you want; get one auto-translated, badged project per language from a single import.
Any provider, full speed
Free Google/DeepL out of the box, or your own DeepL, OpenAI, Claude or DeepSeek key — then review with translation memory, glossary and the AI refiner.
Export back, ids intact
Same format out as in, with your keys and ids preserved, so the translated file drops straight back into your build.
Yes. RuneTranslate translates the text Unity games externalize: TextAsset and MonoBehaviour string fields inside .assets / level files / AssetBundles (read and written via a bundled UnityPy runtime), plus loose script files under StreamingAssets. MonoBehaviour fields read on both Mono and IL2CPP builds — for IL2CPP the type info is reconstructed from the game's metadata. It does NOT translate strings compiled into the game's code (Assembly-CSharp.dll / the IL2CPP binary). Most indie VNs and RPGs externalize their script, so coverage is good — but verify on your specific game.
Can RuneTranslate translate RPG Developer Bakin games?
Yes. RuneTranslate reads the database (item / skill / character / class / condition names + descriptions) and event / scenario text out of a Bakin game's data.rbpack, then ships your translations through Bakin's own built-in localization system — your target language is added as a real in-game language you pick from the title menu. 3D models, textures, and audio are left untouched, and text compiled into a game's C# battle / menu scripts is out of scope. Verify on your specific game.
Does it work on small indie games?
Yes. RuneTranslate works by engine, so anything built on RPG Maker MV / MZ, Kirikiri / KAG, Ren’Py, Wolf RPG, TyranoBuilder, Unity, RPG Developer Bakin, SRPG Studio, NScripter / ONScripter, Godot, Artemis, or a generic Electron VN shell is supported, whatever the game’s genre.
How is RuneTranslate different from Sugoi Toolkit, Translator++, or mtool?
RuneTranslate works at the level of the game’s own files rather than injecting text at runtime. You translate the project once and export a standalone build you keep and play — no overlay running alongside the game, no local server, no per-game scripting. It also puts DeepL, OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google and a local model in one editor instead of making you move between tools. Runtime tools reach games no adapter has been written for, which is the trade you are making. There is a page-by-page comparison at runetranslate.com/compare.
Do I need an OpenAI or DeepL API key?
Optional. Google Translate works with no key. DeepL has a free tier. OpenAI and Anthropic are BYOK: you bring your own key, it is stored encrypted on your PC, and it never touches our servers.
Is it free?
Yes. Every engine, every provider, the full editor, and the AI refiner are unlocked on the free tier — translation just runs modestly slower (roughly 2× on AI providers, less on the free providers). Supporter ($3.99/mo), Pro ($5.99/mo) and Ultimate ($9.99/mo) unlock full-speed translation plus translation memory, provider routing, and glossary. There is no paid-only engine and no paid-only language. Free keeps 1 project at a time; Supporter 10, Pro 30, Ultimate 100.
Can multiple people translate a game together?
Yes — collaborative projects. A Supporter hosts a project on RuneTranslate and shares an invite code; anyone (including free users) joins and translates together in real time, like a shared doc. You get live presence (who is online, the line each person is editing, the rows they have selected) and a “translated by” credit on every line. Joining and translating is free — only hosting a shared project needs the Supporter tier. Any member with their own copy of the game can export the finished build.
