Symbols that can’t be understood have always captivated human imagination, especially when they tell a story. Some games lean into this captivation by asking players to decipher alien imagination, going beyond the usual dialogue box or quest marker. They invite curiosity and reward patience, letting players roleplay an archaeologist uncovering the secrets of a foreign civilization.
8 Best Hero Aliens In Movies, Ranked
Aliens have often been depicted as villains in cinematic history, but they have had their heroic roles in movies as well.
Here are seven games that take the idea in a different direction, whether it be with elegance or humor, but always capturing the same joy of turning something incomprehensible into an engaging story.
Heaven's Vault
Every Word Feels Like Archaeology
- ESRB
- T For Teen: Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- inkle studios
- Genre(s)
- Indie, Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
Heaven’s Vault treats language like treasure. As an archaeologist named Aliya, players uncover fragments of an ancient language across Nebula’s ruins. Each symbol can be pieced together with context, forcing players to test hypotheses rather than solving “square goes in square hole” puzzles. It’s possible to guess wrong, and that misinterpretation ripples through into future translation, creating a sense of discovery where even mistakes carry weight.
What makes it special is how those translations directly tie into storytelling. The history of Nebula feels uncertain, subjective, and ever-changing, as if the language itself is shaping your perception of the past. There’s no single correct answer, just a growing dictionary of meanings that feel as fragile as the artifacts you study.
Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye
When Language Lives in Shadows
The base game of Outer Wilds already has plenty of language-solving, but the Echoes of the Eye takes it to another level. Centered around communication without words, the Nomai left behind murals and slideshows, forcing players to interpret flickering images in dark hallways and projection rooms. It’s the perfect example of “show, don’t tell” storytelling, where silence speaks louder than any dialogue.
It’s not just about learning lore either; understanding the fears, rituals, and secrets of the alien people unlocks the way forward. It ends up creating moments where understanding a symbol or recognizing a reused pattern feels more satisfying than opening any locked door.
Fez
Cracking The Code Of A Hidden Language
Though it appears to be a simple puzzle game at a glance, Fez hides an entire foreign alphabet in plain sight. Initially, the glyphs painted on walls and stones look to be no more than decorative flourishes, but attentive players find that they reveal themselves as a fully functional language. Players had to piece together an entire cipher to make sense of the world’s secrets, and community forums were buzzing as new discoveries kept unraveling deeper layers of the game.
8 Best Androids In The Alien Movies, Ranked
From Bishop to the newest character Andy, androids (or artificial people) have appeared in every single Alien movie since the start.
What’s striking is how natural it feels once decrypted. Suddenly, those strange patterns stop being random symbols and start to communicate real messages. Transforming exploration from platforming into linguistic archaeology, making Fez one of the rare games where solving the language is the key to understanding the game’s world itself.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
When Aliens Speak in Sith Tongues
Making alien language part of its role-playing depth, Knights of the Old Republic’s Twi’leks, Ithorians, and growling Wookies aren’t just background NPCs making incomprehensible noise. Their untranslated dialogue forces players to rely on context, tone, and the occasional droid as an interpreter.
Though it isn’t a system requiring players to painstakingly crack codes, it does capture the immersion of a galaxy full of diverse languages. It makes you feel like a visitor in unfamiliar cultures, and every translation moment reinforces the scope of the Star Wars universe. The language barrier is sometimes tense, other times humorous, but always flavorful.
Journey to the Savage Planet
Cracking Jokes in an Alien Dialect
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Language, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Typhoon Studios
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Xbox One
Taking a more comedic route, Journey to the Savage Planet makes even its flora and fauna absurd, let alone the way it toys with alien communication. While scanning strange creatures and plants, the commentary about them riffs on the absurdity of trying to make sense of things that are nonsensical to begin with.
Alien: 9 Games With The Best Stories, Ranked
From Amanda Ripley trying to find closure in Alien: Isolation to the Xeno worshiping cults in Aliens: Dark Descent, Alien games have diverse stories.
The act of “translating” here is about interpreting the environment through goofy corporate jargon and deliberately unhelpful analysis tools. Instead of reverent or profound, it treats alien language as something ridiculous and overwhelming. It’s the perfect satire of language barriers in the form of slapstick sci-fi.
Subnautica
The Sea Speaks Silent Words
- ESRB
- E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language
- Developer(s)
- Unknown Worlds Entertainment
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
Subnautica is primarily remembered for its survival tension and gutwrenching ocean depths, but it also hides an alien language woven into the ruins of the Precursors. Strange symbols and artifacts are scattered throughout the world, which hint at their advanced technology and struggle with the Kharaa infection. Instead of giving any neat translations, the game relies on its environmental storytelling and scattered logs to aid you in interpretation through context.
The unknown language only deepens the sense of isolation on this alien planet with no land mass. You’re not just a lone survivor, but an outsider decoding scraps of a civilization that was far more advanced. Each ruin players visit feels like uncovering a story, a reminder that in Subnautica, the ocean is full of alien voices.
Chants of Sennaar
Decoding the Tower of Babel
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+
- Developer(s)
- Rundisc
- Genre(s)
- Puzzle, Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Putting a language puzzle twist on the age-old story of Babel, Chants of Sennaar has players take control of a lone traveler ascending a massive tower filled with isolated cultures, each speaking a tongue that can’t quite be comprehended. The entire experience is built around carefully observing, listening, and scribbling down notes as you slowly piece together meaning from symbols and context.
Every breakthrough feels earned, and that’s what makes it so gripping. Spotting a word you’ve seen before on a door and in a conversation gives the same satisfaction as unraveling some secret code. The game doesn’t bother with combat or flashy skill trees, just pure linguistic discovery. By the time players are bridging communication between groups who can’t understand each other, it feels like going from a confused outsider to the interpreter holding the entire tower together.
10 Best Sci-Fi Movies About Hunting Aliens, Ranked
The definitive list of alien-hunting films for anyone seeking a thrilling sci-fi movie packed with action, horror, and fascinating alien lifeforms.