Overview
An ancient alphabet emerges from the strange glyphs.
Introduction
One of the first things you’ll see in most reviews of HLD is how beautifully the game conveys the story without using words. Most NPCs you can talk to share some pictograms of their experiences or advice to shape your journey through the game. However, there are written words in the game, just not in a language we’re used to.
As you go through the game, you come across monoliths that feature an odd pattern. I found three before I suspected it was a code to be broken, and tried to puzzle it out. Nothing really looked feasible, until I was in the hub one day and noticed the stores also bore letters above their doors. It seemed this could be the rosetta stone I was looking for! If you’re avoiding spoilers or anything here’s where you should get off the ride!
Translation
After some puzzling, I figured out that the stores were called (respectively, if memory serves) “Sword Master”, “Dash Arena”, “Apothecary”, “Weapons”, and “Tech Shop” (shout out to Dash Arena for being the first domino to fall). As far as cryptograms go, this one was especially tricky because at least 6 symbols are shared by two english letters. So far I’ve found 4 monoliths, and managed to decipher them:
“An isolated people, fearful and obsessed”
“Rifts crafted, dangerous potential”
Conclusion
Despite me posting this I’m generally avoiding spoilers, so I’m sure I’m not the first one to figure this out. I also suspect that there’s something more going on with the monoliths, maybe something that need to be entered in at some point but I haven’t discovered it. I just got very excited about the hidden language of this great game. Happy hunting!