Far Cry Primal’s just a month and a bit away, so the Ubisoft PR engine is in all ahead full. I don’t plan to write about every single one of the 94 trailers they’ll doubtlessly produce, but this latest Behind the Scenes is focused on something I find particularly interesting about the game: its use of language. Far from being produced in English, ever spoken line of dialogue will be in an ancient, partially made up language. It definitely existed, being the root of most of what we have today, we just have no idea how it was said, being thousands upon thousands of years ago.
We found out there will be no co-op in Far Cry Primal, so you’ll have to make do with these great co-op games instead.
The video itself is all about the behind the scenes development of the game, presented, for some reason, by a man in a very cold-looking forest:
It’s fairly brave, particularly considering the size and expected sales of the game, to launch without any spoken English whatsoever. It might seem normal to PC folks who are used to reading their way through a novel worth of lore every time they turn around in an RPG, but subtitles-on isn’t the norm for the majority of players, I’d expect. It also requires, as you can see, a lot of research to get it right, or approximated. That’s a lot of effort to go to for a game where you ride mammoths around and tell a saber-tooth tiger to eat a man’s neck.
It’s also clearer here how they’re differentiating between the tribes. That more advanced one – which I’m not even going to attempt to spell – is all bone-coloured masks and blue body paint. Stark, clear differences like this will be important in a world without traditional uniforms, languages or buildings.