In the game XCOM 2 ADVENT soldiers shout observations and commands to each other. Their words are not understandable, but context makes clear to the player what they're thinking.
Did the creators of XCOM 2 design a full conlang for ADVENT?
asked Feb 14, 2018 at 4:33
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Personally, I'd say these bits and pieces of voice don't sound coherent enough to be a thought-out language. Considering that there are many aliens involved it may also be a lot of languages.– HelmarCommented Feb 14, 2018 at 11:45
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1 Answer
In this article the dev team of XCOM 2 explain that they didn't have the time or resources to invent a full conlang, but instead made up gibberish that got across the sort of 'feeling' they wanted. In order to sound "darker and more ominous," they were deliberate in their choice of sounds for this gibberish, basing it on so-called "guttural languages" such as German and Dutch, and then they designed filters to make the voice actors sound more robotic.
Steve helped shape the final sound by experimenting with the gibberish pronunciations that we came up with. In order to convey meaning to the player, we had to rely solely on the tone and delivery of the lines, with things like ‘Halt!’ Or ‘Enemy Spotted!’ coming across with more intensity than say a standard ‘I’m moving’ line. In the process I also tried to establish vocal patterns in each subset of lines to create some cohesion between the otherwise meaningless words the actors were reading.
A feat on the part of the sound designers and voice actors, to be sure, but not a proper conlang. Nothing stopping XCOM fans from expanding it into a full conlang, though!
