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How to Change Game Language in Junk Store Pro

Pick a language per game in its Installation settings, and what to do when a game offers none

For Epic and GOG, language is an install choice: you pick which language version to fetch, per game, from Game Mode.

On the Decky plugin? It has no language menu, so it's done with environment variables. See changing game language in the Decky plugin.

Work down this page, not up. Start with the game's Installation settings. Only reach for the environment variables further down if the game offers no language of its own, and leave the store-wide setting alone unless your whole library is in one language.

The normal way: per game, in Installation settings

  1. Open the game's Installation settings

    On the game's page, open the cog, then choose Installation.

    A game's Configuration menu in Junk Store Pro, listing Game configs, Proton, Installation, Game Details and Images
  2. Open the Languages section

    The panel is built for that game by asking the store what it offers, so you'll see only the sections that apply. Languages lists the versions available beyond what's already installed.

  3. Pick your language, then save

    The two stores hand you a different control, so it's worth knowing which one you're looking for.

    GOG gives you a dropdown and you pick one language. English is the default, and the help pane on the right lists what this particular game offers.

    The Languages section of a GOG game's Installation settings, with a Platform dropdown set to Windows above a Language dropdown set to English, and the help pane listing the game's available languages with their codes: English en-US, Czech cs-CZ, French fr-FR, German de-DE, Italian it-IT, Polish pl-PL, Russian ru-RU and Spanish es-ES

    Epic gives you tickboxes, none of them ticked, and you can choose more than one. Epic calls these install tags, and on some games they cover more than language.

    Epic's Languages section in a game's Installation settings, listing spanish, italian, german and french as separate switches, all of them off

    Press X to save the config.

  4. If the game is already installed, verify or repair it
    The panel doesn't move any files on its own. Choosing a language records that you want it, it doesn't fetch it. Run Verify game or Repair game from the game's own menu to pull the language files down. Skip this and nothing appears to happen, which is the usual reason people report that changing a language did nothing.

    Expect it to take a while on a large game, since it checks what's on disk before working out what's missing. On a game you haven't installed yet there's nothing else to do, as the download picks up your choice.

    That's the reason to open this before installing something large. Nothing asks you about any of it by default, so you get English and every DLC you own, which can be a good deal more than you wanted. Setting it beforehand costs nothing. Setting it afterwards costs you a verify or repair.

If the game offers no language option

Some older games have no language setting of their own and simply run in whatever the system reports. LANG and HOST_LC_ALL change what the system reports, which is the only lever those games respond to. They sit on games launched through Proton, so if you're looking at something running under Linux, DOSBox or RetroArch, they won't be there.

This is a last resort, not the normal way to choose a language. A game handed a locale it didn't expect can show the wrong characters, lose its fonts, lay its menus out badly, or fail to start at all. Check the game's Installation settings first, and only come here if there's no language listed.
  1. Open the game's configs

    On the game's page, open the cog, then Game configs, and set the dropdown to All to reveal everything.

    A game's configuration screen in Junk Store with the dropdown set to show all available options
  2. Set LANG under Environment

    Open the ENVIRONMENT section, select LANG, and choose your language. HOST_LC_ALL sits just above it and does the same job more forcefully: LANG offers the game a default, HOST_LC_ALL overrides the individual locale settings outright. Try LANG first and only reach for the other one if the game ignores it.

    The Environment section expanded with the LANG setting selected The language list open, showing the available locale options to pick from
  3. Save

    Press X to save. Because you set it here rather than on the store, it affects this one game and is easy to undo.

If the game misbehaves afterwards, empty the field first. That's the most likely cause, and empty means "don't interfere", not "English".

The store-wide setting, and why to leave it alone

The same two settings exist on the store's own cog, where they apply to every game in that store.

The store-wide language list, scrolled to show English, German, French, Italian, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Japanese, Chinese Simplified and Korean, with more below

One game's fix becomes every game's risk. Plenty of games aren't set up for it, and a tab-wide change can break ones that were working perfectly well. Set it on the single game that needs it instead.

The exception is a library that's entirely in one language, which is unusual. Otherwise, work per game.

More in the manual

The Junk Store Pro user manual covers the why behind these screens, if you want the detail rather than the steps.

Stuck or need help?

Most issues are quick to sort out. Here's where to start.

Want the full detail? The user manual covers every screen and setting in Junk Store Pro, and is worth a look if you'd rather read up than hunt through fixes.

Still stuck? Open a support ticket right in the Support Portal

For game-specific issues, feedback, or just a chat, you'll find us on:

Discord Reddit Lemmy

On Discord, head to the #js-pro-support channel.