How to translate text in PC games — options and how they work
When the Steam game you want to play isn't in a language you can read, external tools let you capture and translate the text on screen.
There are quite a few tools out there, and the approaches and fit differ a lot. This article is a catalog of what exists, how they differ, and how to choose between them.
※ Based on official information available as of April 2026. Tool specs and compatibility change frequently, so check each tool's official page for current info before installing. Actual experience varies by environment and game.
Why translating game text is hard
Translating text from a game screen is harder than translating a webpage or document, for a few reasons at once.
First, OCR (on-screen text recognition) accuracy. Games often use decorative fonts and distinctive typefaces, the background is dynamic, and text can be vertical, curved, or animated. General-purpose document OCR assumes printed material, so accuracy drops on game screens.
Next is context. Translating a single subtitle line is hard even for human translators. Who's speaking, what just happened, the character's personality, the conventions of the genre — a human translator uses all of it, but the AI only gets one image's worth of information. The shorter the text, the more this missing context hurts.
Finally, movement. Subtitles flow across the screen and dialogue cuts to the next line. In the few seconds it takes for a translation to appear, the original may already be gone. As long as it runs in real time, there's no escape from the speed-accuracy tradeoff.
Every tool is solving these in its own way.
Three approaches to game translation
1. Hooking into the game
Tools that hook into the game process and grab the text string before it renders. They don't go through OCR, so font decoration and render quality don't affect them. This approach is the most accurate.
The catch is that it depends on the game's implementation, so only certain games work. It lands well on engines whose internals are known — visual novel engines, Unity, and so on. AAA titles and custom engines often can't be hooked.
Representative tools: Textractor (for visual novels), XUnity Auto Translator (for Unity).
2. Capturing the screen and running OCR
Tools that capture the screen and run image recognition on it to extract text. The upside is they work on any game. If the font is clean, accuracy is practical.
The downside is that heavily decorated typefaces, low-res subtitles, and text that blends into the background tend to be misread. The OCR engine's quality sets the ceiling for the whole system.
Representative tools: PCOT, Live Translate, Quick Translate Engine, Playto.
Within screen-OCR tools, how the capture region behaves changes the experience a lot.
"Fixed region" means you mark a specific area of the screen (like the subtitle band) and the tool captures that area continuously. You don't have to take your hands off the controller, which suits RPGs, JRPGs, and AAA titles where dialogue appears in a fixed subtitle band.
"Cursor follow" means the capture region follows your mouse — when you move the cursor, the region moves with it. This suits menus, inventories, UI elements, and item descriptions: text scattered around the screen that you want to read freely.
There are also "full-screen" and "click-to-select" modes, which either translate the whole screen at once or let you click to pick a specific region. These don't capture continuously, so they aren't a great fit for flowing dialogue, but they work well for instant menu translation.
Each tool supports a different set of modes, so how you play (subtitles only, or also freely reading UIs) becomes part of what you're choosing between.
3. Pointing a phone camera at the screen
Aiming a smartphone camera at the PC screen and using something like Google Lens to read the text. No dedicated tool to install; anyone can try it immediately.
But every time you want a reading, you have to take your hands off the controller or keyboard, pick up the phone, point the camera, read, and put the phone down — which definitely breaks your flow.
Tool overviews
Each overview is based on what the tool's official page or repository says at the time of writing. Check the official sites for current specs and real-world experience.
PCOT (Nuruppo)
A screen-OCR-based translation assistant. Uses Windows10 OCR to recognize on-screen text, paired with DeepL or Google Translate to produce a Japanese (or other) translation. Free. The official page lists dictionary support, screenshot translation, and popup compatibility. Maintained by an indie developer (Nuruppo), and well known in the Japanese-speaking community.
Official: https://www.nuru.pro/software/pcot/
Textractor
A hook-based translation assistant for visual novels. Pulls text strings directly from the game engine and passes them to external translation services. Free and open source. Engine compatibility and usage are documented on the official repository.
Official: https://github.com/Artikash/Textractor
XUnity Auto Translator
A hook-based translation tool for Unity games. It injects into the game and replaces text in place. Widely used for Unity indie games. Free and open source.
Official: https://github.com/bbepis/XUnity.AutoTranslator
Live Translate (Steam)
A screen-OCR translation overlay sold on Steam. The official store page mentions support for 140+ languages, offline operation, and inline text replacement.
Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3812790/Live_Translate/
Quick Translate Engine (Steam)
A screen-OCR Steam translation tool released in 2025. The official store page describes it as displaying translations in semi-transparent bubbles, optimized for overlay on game screens.
Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3827150/Quick_Translate_Engine/
Playto
A desktop app that combines screen OCR, translation, and a personal dictionary. Three engine modes — OCR, Text+ (OCR with vision-model post-correction), and VLM (recognizing directly from the image) — are switchable, and capture supports both fixed region and cursor follow. Runs on local AI (via llama.cpp), so offline operation is possible.
Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4603950/
For reference: Google Lens (phone camera)
Not a dedicated tool, but sometimes mentioned as a way to translate PC game text, so it's worth a note. You point your phone at the PC screen and use Google Lens's translation feature to read what's there.
The upside is zero install — anyone can try it. The downside is that every reading costs you a beat where you stop what you're doing and use the phone. Fine for a quick menu check; not great for flowing dialogue.
How to choose
No tool is "best"; fit depends on the game and what you want to use it for. The following are rough guides, and since tool specs change often, check the official sites before committing.
By the kind of game
If you mostly play visual novels, Textractor is widely used and its supported engine list is public. For Unity indie games, XUnity Auto Translator is usually the option. For anything else — RPGs, MMOs, AAA, English-only Steam games — hook-based tools often can't reach them, so screen-OCR tools (PCOT, Live Translate, Quick Translate Engine, Playto) become the practical candidates.
By budget
If you want to stay free, PCOT, Textractor, and XUnity Auto Translator are all free. Playto Lite is also free and covers the screen-OCR feature. For commercial tools with support, Live Translate, Quick Translate Engine, and Playto Standard are sold on Steam.
By capture mode
If you mostly play games where subtitles appear in the same place on screen (RPG-style), fixed-region OCR is enough — PCOT and the Steam overlay tools cover this mode. If you want to freely read menus, inventories, and quest logs scattered across the screen, cursor-follow is more convenient. Some games benefit from both, so how many modes a tool supports is another axis — Playto supports both; for others, check the official sites.
Just translation, or a learning element too
If reading the screen text in your language is enough, any of the tools above will do the job. If you want to collect the words you ran into during play and review them later, Playto has a dictionary and text-logging feature built for that. Most other tools focus purely on translation and don't include the word-collection piece.
Summary
PC game screen translation splits into three approaches — hook-based, screen-OCR, and camera — each with its own strengths. The right tool depends on your games' engines, your budget, and how you want to use the translation, so rather than picking one upfront, trying a couple and seeing what fits is usually the shortest path.
The tools covered here are the main ones verifiable as of April 2026, but new ones keep appearing. If you come across one mentioned somewhere, it's worth a look at the official site.
Playto is a desktop app built around "Learn Languages Through Games," combining screen OCR translation with dictionary and logging features. Lite (free) ships soon, and Standard ($9.99) enters Steam Early Access on April 27, 2026. More on the Steam store page.