Starfield petition asks Bethesda to boost Arabic accessibility

pcgamesn.com:

We finally have the Starfield release date, with the upcoming RPG game set to launch later than expected, but still – thankfully – well within 2023. As we get ready to join Constellation and explore New Atlantis, thousands of Starfield players sign a petition asking Skyrim and Fallout developer Bethesda to broaden its localisation efforts by adding Arabic language support to the upcoming space odyssey.

As of this writing, the petition for Starfield Arabic support has gathered over 3,400 signatures in just five days. Addressing Bethesda directly, the petition’s description says that “We, the Arab players, would like if you would kindly add the Arabic language to the Starfield game. It does not matter if the language is immediately after its launch or two months after…thank you.”

According to the Starfield Steam page, the game will offer either full audio support or subtitling for ten languages including Russian, Chinese, and Japanese. Arabic however is not listed. Bethesda RPGs Skyrim and Fallout 4 also do not offer any form of Arabic language support.

Supposedly featuring over 250,000 lines of spoken dialogue, from what we know of Starfield so far, the game will boast an enormous world, story, and script. Other RPG games however do offer Arabic language support. Hogwarts Legacy provides an Arabic interface and subtitles, as do The Witcher 3, and the expansive Cyberpunk 2077.

“There are over 360 million Arabic speakers in the world,” one signatory of the Starfield petition writes. “A game like Starfield, an epic space odyssey, should be something shared by all humanity in as many languages as reasonably possible.” “Gaming should be accessible to everyone regardless of where they are from,” another says. We expect to learn