Hyper Light Drifter

Hyper Light Drifter

163 ratings
The Secret Language of Hyper Light Drifter
By DynamiteToast
An ancient alphabet emerges from the strange glyphs.
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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:
"Transcendence faith in mortality"

"An isolated people, fearful and obsessed"

"Rifts crafted, dangerous potential"
"A poisoned, maddened homeland"
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!
13 Comments
CaeruleusBlue 11 Jan, 2021 @ 12:00am 
So it's in English and you only deciphered it? Still cool
D3ATHANY 5 Feb, 2020 @ 10:04pm 
So cool!!
Stag 22 Nov, 2019 @ 10:22am 
This is really great! I wish you would finish the rest of them. I have unlocked them all and could upload a screenshot if you need. Always thought that when you unlocked them all youd find a way to translate em, like another machine would come on or something but nope....
Nyx 30 Dec, 2016 @ 9:50pm 
I found a new one, to the east, it says 'offering of a great cleansing flame'.
canonitis 5 Dec, 2016 @ 10:04pm 
"Transcendence faith in mortality" could also be "transcendence faith immortality" which I feel makes more sense as immortality is a more fitting word with the previous two rather than trying to make an awkward sentance such as transcendence faith in mortality. unless I'm missing something that gives this context, in which case I'd love to hear more about it.
the1stMoyatia 10 Apr, 2016 @ 8:22pm 
Seems fun how they put out some dialect to decipher.
deliveryboy 10 Apr, 2016 @ 9:37am 
omg. never thought of this. Thank you for this wonderful guide.
Cozzie 9 Apr, 2016 @ 4:12pm 
I did a translation of all the monoliths and turned the glyphs into a font for easy translating and decoding https://mega.nz/#!TUE03JgK!jrsRJHq-kMHB8FAb3ZcY_-ov17butxennoL1NgK13S4 message me if you want it and the link doesn't work (Steam is odd with links)
GhostGK 5 Apr, 2016 @ 10:03pm 
This is amzing, hope the community can decypher all the tablets one day.. :D
Demonskunk 5 Apr, 2016 @ 5:30pm 
I figured out that E and U share a symbol, thanks to one of the tablets in the West.