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The universes of cryptography 28 methods

Symbols in video games

Zelda, Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Genshin Impact, Halo, Fez, Stray, Kirby: half a century of invented alphabets used to inhabit game worlds — and that players have set about decoding on the side.

Spotlight cipher

Sheikah (Breath of the Wild)

The script on BoTW shrines and guardians: squares and dots, pairs with Hylian.

Symbols 2017 (Breath of the Wild) Nintendo EPD
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Cinema has passed the baton

Video games are now the world’s largest cultural industry. They have therefore replaced cinema as the main producer of fictional alphabets: every major adventure, RPG or open-world licence ships one or several writing systems to thicken its environments.

The pattern is constant — an invented alphabet is cheaper than an extra actor, carries more immersion than any dubbed dialogue, and survives the DLCs.

Nintendo: the Zelda treasure trove

The Legend of Zelda universe is the richest: Nintendo has deposited four alphabets across the franchise. Hylian (since Twilight Princess, 2006), Sheikah (Breath of the Wild, 2017), Gerudo (Tears of the Kingdom, 2023) and Goron (introduced in Breath of the Wild).

Each is a strict substitution on the Japanese or Roman alphabet — readable as soon as you have the table — and each visually characterises a region of Hyrule. Players started transcribing them within days of each release.

Bethesda: Daedric, Dovahzul, Iokharic

The Elder Scrolls saga publishes Daedric (the tongue of the Daedric Princes, since Morrowind in 2002), Dovahzul (the dragon tongue since Skyrim, 2011, with complete syntax) and Iokharic (the Draconic alphabet of Daggerfall, 1996).

Dovahzul has crossed from game into pop culture — there are tattoos, online dictionaries, even fan conferences held in Dovahzul.

JRPG, open-world, ARG

Final Fantasy X introduces Al Bhed in 2001, and it is one of the rare cases where the gameplay loop directly integrates cryptography: you decipher Al Bhed as you collect scattered dictionaries across the world.

Genshin Impact has multiplied scripts as its regions shipped. Halo has been deploying Covenant writing since Halo: Combat Evolved (2001). Fez (2012) builds its entire endgame puzzle on an invented alphabet that the player community took eighteen months to crack collectively, ARG included. Stray (2022) hides its robot text on every wall of its city of cats.

Wingdings and the schoolyard

Special mention to the Windows glyph fonts — Wingdings, Webdings, Symbol, Zapf Dingbats — never designed as fiction alphabets, but turned by generations of players and pre-2000 internet users into playground codes.

The grand pattern that unifies this universe: every time a studio slipped an alphabet into its game, the players cracked it. CipherChronicle hands you the tables and the workshop.

Catalogue

Methods in this universe

28 methods

The Legend of Zelda

Skyrim & Elder Scrolls

Final Fantasy & JRPG

Modern adventures

Glyph fonts (PC)

Other methods