Forest of Deceit Adds 6 Languages on Xbox and Windows PC With Per-Player Controller Settings

What changed​

Ghost Camp announced on Xbox Wire that Forest of Deceit, the social deduction party game created by Ghost Camp and Thomas Mackinnon (The Corridor, It Takes a War) and narrated by Sylvester McCoy ("Doctor Who", "The Hobbit") is now localised in six new languages. The new languages are:

• German
• French
• Spanish
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Simplified Chinese
• Italian

According to the studio, the localisation update is out now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PC, and the game supports Xbox Play Anywhere. For Windows users, that means one purchase covers console and PC, the usual Play Anywhere arrangement. The Xbox store listing also shows Xbox achievements and cloud saves.

Thomas Mackinnon, Ghost Camp's team lead, wrote the post. He says that when the game first came out earlier in the year, one of the most common questions was whether it would eventually be localised, and the update is now live.

Other platforms appear to be getting the same update. Perfectly Nintendo's tracker for the Switch version quotes patch notes that added localisation support for the following languages: German · French · Spanish · Brazilian Portuguese · Simplified Chinese · Italian · Other various minor bug fixes, and cites Ghost Camp's Steam post as the source.

Summary: Six languages are available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows PC, with Play Anywhere support. The same patch notes list minor bug fixes too.

Text is translated, narration is not​

The Xbox Wire post doesn't say how far the translation goes. It doesn't mention menus, subtitles or the Sylvester McCoy narration. The Steam store's language table fills in part of that gap. It lists seven supported languages. English is marked for interface, full audio and subtitles. French, Italian, German, Spain Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese are marked for interface and subtitles only.

In practice, McCoy's narration stays in English, and the six new languages get translated text and subtitles. That's normal for a small indie party game, and it's not a knock on the update. Players in these languages can follow the rules and the results screens, but they will hear the narrator in English. The Xbox store listing also shows "7 Supported languages" (English plus the six new ones), but it doesn't break that down by audio and text.

Summary: Going by Steam's language table, the six new languages cover interface text and subtitles. Spoken narration remains English-only.

Why language matters so much in this game​

Forest of Deceit is a social deduction Jackbox-esque game for 4-8 players. Your group is lost in a cursed forest and has to build a shelter before a storm hits. Every day, gathering parties go out for resources. Innocents try to bring back useful materials. Traitors bring back bad resources and try to get other players lost. The group discusses what happened after each day's results, and after a few days it holds daily votes to expel suspected Traitors. Innocents win if the shelter is finished in time; otherwise the Traitors win.

With that setup, a translation mistake can change how the game plays out. Mackinnon's example: if you don't understand what a specific button does or exactly what your choice in the game means, it could mean you act in a way that leads to you looking far more suspicious than you intended. He says the team worked closely with translators on accuracy. His example is that the game has to clearly separate a player who got lost in the woods by chance from a player the group voted out. If the translation blurs those two outcomes, the table ends up arguing about the wrong event.

This is the studio's own reasoning, published on Microsoft's official Xbox news blog. The post contains no user testing, translator comments or player data. The argument is still sound. In most games, a clumsy translation just reads badly. In a game about reading other people's intentions, it can make someone look guilty.

Summary: The game's main mechanic is judging what players meant to do, so unclear wording can change the outcome of a round.

One player can use a different language​

The most useful detail for real groups is that language can be set per player. Mackinnon's example is a mostly English-speaking group with one friend who only speaks Italian. That group could play the whole game in Italian. Or it could keep the main game in English and set only that one friend's mobile controller to Italian.

That matters because of how the game is played. Each player uses their own phone, tablet, or computer through a web browser, and only one copy is required for play with 4-8 players either locally or online via screenshare. The shared screen can stay in the group's main language while one guest's browser shows their own. Mackinnon compares it to a restaurant offering a vegetarian option: it helps the one vegetarian, and it also means their whole group can eat there together.

Ghost Camp hasn't published instructions for changing the controller language, so we won't guess at menu names. If you're hosting a mixed-language group, check the language settings on the main screen and on a phone controller before everyone arrives. Game night goes better when nobody is troubleshooting settings mid-round.

Summary: Players who need a different language can set it on their own browser controller while the shared screen stays in the group's language. No official instructions for this have been published yet.

Practical notes for Windows and Xbox hosts​

Based on the Xbox and Steam listings:

Steam's page for online play recommends Discord for screen sharing. The Steam requirements still say "Windows 7+", but the Steam client itself has required Windows 10 or later since January 2024, so treat that line as out of date. The Xbox/Microsoft Store version on PC falls under Microsoft's own Windows requirements.

Before a mixed-language session:

1. Update the game on the host console or PC. On Xbox and Windows, the update should arrive through the normal store update process.
2. Make sure every player's phone or tablet can open the game in a browser on your network, or join through your screen share if you're playing online.
3. Choose the language for the main screen, then test one controller in a second language before the session.
4. Let non-English speakers know the narration is English and that the subtitles carry the dialogue.

Summary: The host needs one copy, and each player needs a device with a web browser. Test the language settings before the group starts.

Why this matters for small games​

This is a small update from a small studio, but it shows how inexpensive local party games have become a real part of the Xbox and PC catalogue. Jackbox-style games bring in players who would never pick up a gamepad. The more varied the group, the more likely that someone in it doesn't read English well.

Mackinnon admits that localisation costs money and takes time, but we believe localising games to as many languages as possible (especially ones as word-based as ours) is worth it. There is a fair counterpoint: text and subtitles don't equal full voice localisation, and the list leaves out major markets such as Japanese, Korean and Russian. Ghost Camp hasn't announced any further languages or a timeline. Even so, per-player language settings solve a problem that full dubbing wouldn't. A group that shares a screen doesn't always share a language.

Have you run a party game night with a mixed-language group on Xbox or PC? Tell us in the forums which games handled it well and which ones caused arguments.