In the depths of space, there are hundreds and hundreds of different species. You'll have aliens, space pirates, and all sorts of animals; all key features in upcoming indie game No Man's Sky.
So automatically you have to assume that English can't be the only language out there; and guess what, you're right. The multiple languages have been heavily detailed over on the PlayStation Blog with the help of managing Director Sean Murray.
"With NPCs in No Man’s Sky, you actually have to learn their language; they speak to you in their native tongue. The more you travel around the universe, the more you learn their language, and the more you can communicate with them."
You heard the man, get ready to bust out the alien Rosetta Stone and get to work. Joking aside, Murray does truly mean this, aliens that you encounter will have different purposes, perhaps they'll be similar to yours or completely opposite, only time will tell.
But Murray does go on to explain that the more time spent with a certain race of aliens will help you understand their dialect. In addition, to learning what some basic words and whatnot, you will also be rewarded with cheaper prices or better equipment if a certain race happens to like you. Another interested point is that Murray points out that there will be a dialogue tree, and by stumbling into a foreign region without knowing the common tongue could result in your standing decreasing, a trader ripping you off, or you losing a useful item simply out of confusion.
“The nice thing about it is that the NPCs are divided up into different races. So one race is perhaps more focused on exploration and science, and knowing that helps you decide how to best interact with them,” says Sean.
“If you’re playing the game for exploration’s sake, you might want to focus on that race. But if you’re playing the game and all you want to do is kill things, there are more military-based races, so you might want to try and become friends with them.”
“It depends on how much you’re seeking it out. Even if it’s all you do, you’re definitely talking hours and hours of play to learn a language. But I think most players will never become fluent unless it’s specifically something they’re seeking out."
Murray and the team at Hello Games find these situations immensely fun creating both unique and random encounters for all your time spent in No Man's Sky. Of course, though, learning any language is hard especially an alien one, so Murray then goes on to explain what they're trying to build with this dynamic procedural generated the world which is full of lore, language, and race.
“Some of the languages — well, one in particular — is much harder to learn than the others,” Sean adds. “I think it will probably only be possible for people to decipher some of the dialogue by working together online.“We’re not trying to build something that people will go out and try to speak in the real world, like how I learned Klingon when I was a kid because I thought it would be a great ice-breaker. Turned out not to be the case!“I don’t expect to find people meeting at conventions and speaking one of our languages. That would be awful; please don’t do that! It’s more about creating a really interesting reason for people to explore the game and get some really emergent results.”
No Man's Sky has a lot to live up to, let's hope it all comes together nicely when the game launches this summer on June 21st for the US and the 22nd for Europe.
