9 in 10 best-selling PC games launch without Arabic localization.
Only 7.8% of Steam's 6,387 best-sellers support Arabic translation. The MENA gaming market has 72 million players and generates over $2.0B. Muarrab documents every verified Arabic game localization, the team behind it, and the technical requirements.
92.2%
No Arabic
7.8%
Supports Arabic
Each square stands for ~64 of Steam's 6,387 best-selling games.
About Muarrab
Muarrab (معرب) is an independent, non-profit, ad-free project. We keep a list of Arabic game localizations, whether the developer made them or fans did.
Players should be able to check whether a game is playable in Arabic before they buy it. And the people deciding which languages to support should be able to see how things actually stand, not just what a vendor's slide deck says.
-
Be clear about what's translated
Every entry says whether the Arabic is text only, partly dubbed, or fully voiced. “Has Arabic” can mean very different things.
-
Name the people who did the work
Every entry credits its team and links to their page. No anonymous entries.
-
Never host translations
Muarrab is a directory. We don't host files, and we don't ask teams to hand over their work.
-
Keep the numbers public
Publishers deciding which languages to support should see how things actually stand, not just what a vendor's slide deck says.
- localizations listed
- 307 localizations listed
- official releases
- 130 official releases
- community releases
- 177 community releases
- teams credited
- 60 teams credited
- with Arabic voice work
- 15 with Arabic voice work
- genres
- 102 genres
- platforms
- 18 platforms
- years covered
- 1996–2026 years covered
Counted from the catalog on 2026-09-29. 86 entries don't name a localization team. We keep them and mark them rather than delete them.
- Official Studio Releases
- 18,124 visits/mo
- Across 130 verified releases
- Community Fan Patches
- 24,676 visits/mo
- Across 177 fan patches
- Full Audio Dubbing
- 2,091 visits/mo
- Across 15 voiced releases
Your audience is looking for you
Monthly player searches across Muarrab's verified repository
Why Arabic Gets Cut Before the Budget Conversation Starts
Steam's survey records Arabic players at 0.00%, because Arabic can't be selected as a client language. Developers pull their language lists from that survey. So the region is removed from budgets before anyone runs the numbers.
You can't set Steam to Arabic
Steam supports 29 storefront languages. Arabic is omitted, despite 380M+ native speakers in a multi-billion dollar games market.
Its survey counts Arabic players at 0%
Valve's monthly survey records client language. Because Arabic can't be selected, Arab players register as English or French, vanishing from public telemetry.
Developers pick languages from that survey
Producers consult the survey to allocate translation budgets. Seeing 0.00%, Arabic is cut before market ROI is ever evaluated.
The Arab World Is #13 on Steam's Own Download Rankings
The Arab world ranks #13 of 239 countries in Steam download volume (1.69%), ahead of Australia and Spain. Three Arab countries alone have 72M gamers, more than seven European nations combined.
| Rank | Country / Territory | Download Share |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | China | 19.81% |
| #2 | United States | 19.43% |
| #3 | Russia | 7.63% |
| #5 | Germany | 4.26% |
| #6 | United Kingdom | 3.05% |
| #7 | France | 2.67% |
| #8 | Japan | 2.32% |
| #11 | Turkey | 1.80% |
| #12 | South Korea | 1.79% |
| #13 | Arab World (22 countries) | 1.69% |
| #15 | Australia | 1.56% |
| #16 | Spain | 1.48% |
Source: Valve Steam global download telemetry (archived 27 Sep 2024)
Arabic Gets a Fraction of the Games Other Regions Do
Countries with lower bandwidth get up to 6x more localized games. Italy accounts for 1.00% of downloads but gets 52.0% of top sellers; Arabic gets just 7.8%.
Comparing top-seller language support vs. Steam country download share (6,387 best-sellers)
PlayStation Added Arabic in 2016. Sales Exceeded Sony's Own Expectations.
“Once Arabic was built into the PS4, developers started localizing their games. The effect on game sales was fantastic, and on console sales it surpassed our wildest expectations.”
Titles like Marvel's Spider-Man and God of War followed with full Arabic voice dubbing, making PlayStation the region's dominant console platform.
Steam Is Preparing Native Arabic Support
Valve began adding Arabic client strings in 2025. When Steam enables the language natively, survey telemetry will correct overnight. Teams that localize now reach 72M players before the field gets crowded.
The MENA gaming market, by the numbers
Every figure on player demand, regional revenue, and platform splits is drawn from a named, dated source.
-
$2.0B
Combined games revenue across the three countries in 2024.
Niko Partners, 2025
-
72M
Players at the end of 2024, forecast to reach 84.3M by 2029.
Niko Partners, 2025
-
~380M
Players across the region — roughly 65% of its population.
Analysys Mason, 2024
-
$84.60
Annual games revenue per player in the UAE — the highest of the three.
Niko Partners, 2025
-
45%
Of players in Saudi Arabia say they play in Arabic or prefer to.
Regional player research
-
$70M+
Prize pool at the Esports World Cup 2025 in Riyadh.
Esports World Cup, 2025
A note on the numbers
Figures for MENA-3 (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt) and for the wider Middle East cover different regions and different years, so they can't be added together, and we never do. The language figures are a share of 6,387 best-selling games on Steam, not of every game everywhere.
If you have to defend a budget, you need numbers that hold up.
72 million players most games don't ship Arabic for.
Illustrative photos. They aren't customers, testimonials or named players, just a picture of the audience these numbers describe.
If you don't service your market, others will.
Regional demand doesn't disappear when you skip Arabic. It goes to whoever fills the gap — unauthorized patches, paid kernel-level injectors, and review copies leaked to translation teams weeks before launch.
Read the leak investigation →Paid kernel-level injectors
“For $10 a month, you get access to FLTAH’s kernel-level modification software, in which mystery ‘trust me bro’ code is injected into your system as the program patches AI-translated strings into the supported games while you play.”
Seif Chaib, Arabic Localization Expert
Leaked review copies
“Translating clips from every new release is just too much work when they can leak a review copy and get early access to an Arabic version, skipping all the hassle.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker (script published “Day -17”), Silent Hill F, and Metal Gear Solid Delta were machine-translated weeks before release.
Seif Chaib, Arabic Localization Expert
“Give people localizations and they’ll stop buying dogshit AI slop. Give content creators localizations and they’ll stop leaking your games.”
Seif Chaib, Arabic Localization Expert — seifchaib.com ↗
Questions developers ask about Arabic localization
Is the region actually big enough to be worth a language slot?
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt alone are a $2.0B games market with 72 million players, and the UAE's revenue per player ($84.60) is higher than in much of Europe. The wider Middle East is around 380 million players.
Do players there want Arabic, or are they comfortable in English?
45% of players in Saudi Arabia say they play in Arabic or prefer to; across the Gulf it is 41%. English-only is not a neutral default in this region. It excludes roughly half your potential audience.
What if the Arabic is bad? Won't that damage the game's reputation?
Bad Arabic does damage reputation, which is why Muarrab records scope rather than existence. Every entry states whether the Arabic covers text only, is dubbed, or is partial, and names the team responsible. You can check the record of the games you're being compared to.
Who is accountable for quality?
The team that did the work is named on every entry, and the platforms listed are the ones that team actually announced. The record tells you what exists, and then you test the build yourself.
How does right-to-left actually break a build?
It touches font coverage and glyph shaping, bidirectional text, mirrored layout, string expansion, input methods, and subtitle timing. The failures are almost never in the translation.
Who do I even hire to do this?
The index lists every team credited for Arabic work, what they're credited for, and whether they do commercial or volunteer work. The shortlist is evidence rather than a recommendation.
7.8%