Heaven's Vault made waves in the thinky game landscape in 2019, gaining a reputation as a cryptic-language-deciphering game towards the "linguistics deep dive" end of the spectrum. Playing an archeologist, you traverse worlds and uncover writings to translate, adding to your log and slowly building your understanding of the lexicon as you play, piecing the puzzles together word by word.
The studio behind the game, inkle Ltd, recently shared something in the vein of a new game announcement, but it's hard to be 100% sure what the exact headline is... Most of this announcement comes in the form of two large paragraphs of encrypted symbol-text, a message written in the same language you spend your time slowly deciphering over the course of Heaven's Vault. If not for the final line "Coming, 2025" I would be even less certain of the intent. Here's the full message:
It's been quite some time since I immersed myself in the world of Heaven's Vault, so sadly I've got very little hope of translating this message without turning to wikis. Luckily we can dig into the Steam community comments to find some superfans hard at work piecing together their best guess at exactly what this text is saying. Here's what seems to be the most accurate/current translation, from Steam user regal.nuisance:
my name is [Mazwai?] and I (was) [born?] on [some kind of transmitter? station?]
in the time after the holy [infrequent place?] empire
with/as homes beyond
(I) took twenty moon(s) in hand
as ropes took in (a/the) sailor's hands
I was first (a) child, and then (an) [adult?]
I write these words [in] (the) language of truth
I hope (that?) truth will rise from my words
as water upon [dirty] [things?]
reveals beautiful jewels
Because of? me?, [ ] empty (the) heart of heaven's vault
I cannot explain
but (the) truth must be held within these words that? I write
Or where can truth be
as [astronomers?] [record] [progress/course?] of distant/far stars
I place these marks down until (the) truth is [visible]
It must be and so it will be
I speak time (to?) find (the) truth
Clearly there's still a lot of ambiguity here, as it seems many of these phrases and words can only be inferred based on context rather than literally confirmed via the game. I've quite enjoyed reading some of the discussion, which feels a lot like actual linguists comparing notes and refining a real-world translation.
The text seems to be written from the perspective of an in-universe character (potentially the protagonist of the first game) speaking about lore events that have occurred and what they've been through, with some comments speculating that this could potentially be hinting at a new prequel game which predates Heaven's Vault story-wise. In time we'll see whether this intriguing teaser had them on the right track.
Heaven's Vault is currently on sale for 60% off during the Steam winter sale.
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