Language Selection in Unity

I didn’t expect to be writing a “Part 2” so soon! Last week I dived into the basics of adding multi-language support. Today, let’s talk about giving power back to the player: Language Selection.

Forcing Locale via Command Line

By default, Unity follows the system’s locale. But what if a player prefers an English UI regardless of their OS settings? Before you’ve even built a settings menu, you can offer a quick fix. Players can force a language by adding a launch option:

-language=en-US

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Designing the Selection List

A good language selector should be intuitive. A gold standard is to include the language’s native name and a country flag to help users identify their choice at a glance.

Tip: You can find a great collection of country flag sprites on GitHub.

1. Extending Locale Metadata

To link your flag sprites to Unity’s Locale information, you need to extend the Locale’s metadata. Create a LocaleIcon.cs script to hold your sprite data:

using System;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.Localization.Metadata;

[Metadata(AllowedTypes = MetadataType.Locale)]
[Serializable]
public class LocaleIcon : IMetadata
{
    public Sprite flag;
}

For more on this, check out the official Unity Documentation.

2. Initializing Locales

Since Unity’s Locale API is asynchronous, you’ll need to use a Coroutine to fetch the supported languages safely.

private IEnumerator InitLocales()
{
    // Wait for the localization system to initialize
    yield return LocalizationSettings.InitializationOperation;
    
    // Fetch and store available locales
    _locales = LocalizationSettings.AvailableLocales.Locales.ToArray().Reverse().ToList();
    /* ... Logic to populate your UI ... */
}

3. Extracting Display Data

When displaying the names, CultureInfo.NativeName often includes the country in brackets (e.g., “English (United States)”). You can use a simple split to keep the UI clean:

// Get the name before the brackets
string displayName = locale.Identifier.CultureInfo.NativeName.Split('(')[0].Trim();

// Retrieve our custom metadata
var iconData = locale.Metadata.GetMetadata<LocaleIcon>();
Sprite flag = iconData?.flag;

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Saving Player Preferences

Finally, ensure the game remembers the player’s choice. Use PlayerPrefs to store the locale code and load it during the initialization sequence.

Key	Purpose
LanguagePrefsKey	Stores the localeCode (e.g., “en-US” or “fr-FR”)

// Saving the selection
PlayerPrefs.SetString(LanguagePrefsKey, localeCode);

// Loading on startup
string savedCode = PlayerPrefs.GetString(LanguagePrefsKey, null);

By combining metadata with a simple UI list, you create a much more accessible experience for your international players. Happy coding!