One of the processes the New World team has described before is the way that they set out to make Aeternum feel inspired by historical events and real cultures, but to then follow up and immerse it all in the supernatural and lore all their own. Amazon’s latest Forged in Aeternum video, The Languages of Aeternum, dives into that aspect of worldbuilding.
Language isn’t just the spoken words reflecting inspiration from real cultures,but it also extends to how some of the other inhabitants you’ll encounter would sound. In the accompanying devblog, Narrative Designer Aaron de Orive says, on this, “If they are read with no emphasis or intonations in mind, they did not sound as impressive as we wanted. But with the proper emphasis, intonations, and even with various unique vocalizations they could sound quite alien and arresting”.
Audio Director Jean-Edouard Miclot, in the video, talks about the early process, including how they began approaching constructed languages (conlang) because the Corrupted (and others) needed to make sounds. This then led to the use of a language generation program that you can alter the output to reflect certain (real) cultures more if you need it to.
One example of how they used the language generation was for the Corrupted. “We played around with these vocalizations and intonations, finally settling on a pattern that we thought did the conlang justice”, de Orive says. “In other words, hearing the Corrupted conlang is much more disturbing than reading it.” If you’ve encountered the Corrupted, then you’ll likely hear them in your mind just reading that.
The Ancients also got their own language. Pronunciation was an important step, and in the video, Aaron de Orive demonstrates how conlang comes alive and feels like it’s a fitting addition.
They also go into the creation of the Siren Queen, and how important language was to this encounter too. In the devblog, there are examples of lines written in English for her, then in the language Gotloian, along with phonetics and a pronunciation guide for the voice actor.
The full conversation is worth watching if you want a peek into this side of early development that will also continue to stretch forward as needed for future content.
