Greetings from Baltimore, MD! Firaxicon kicked off this morning with an interesting presentation from Lena Brenk, Civilization: Beyond Earth's lead producer, who discussed the challenges of accurately portraying the wide variety of cultures in the Civ. Because the game is rooted in multiculturalism and its audience is becoming increasingly international, Lena and the rest of Firaxis work hard to maximize immersion for players everywhere, consulting language "experts" -- sometimes even the friends and relatives of Firaxis team members -- to ensure cultural accuracy.
Beyond Earth presented a unique set of linguistic challenges due to its futurized take on the world's cultures. In many cases, the sponsors speak in fictional tongues that are a hybrid of existing languages and dialects. For instance, the Slavic Federation speaks with Russian grammar and Polish vocabulary.
