At one level in Endwalker’s improvement, most of Last Fantasy 14’s characters have been reviving a beloved group meme.
“Thal’s bloody balls!” is, should you’re unaware, one of many few variations of swearing in Last Fantasy 14. You are not precisely going to listen to Thancred Waters or another excessive fantasy characters outright swearing in Sq. Enix’s MMO, so “Thal’s bloody balls!” as an alternative serves as a cool little line of frustration that characters can use for outbursts of rage.
The road has form of turn into a meme within the Last Fantasy 14 group over the MMO’s many, a few years. In truth, Sq. Enix localization veteran Michael Christopher Koji Fox revealed all the best way again at FanFest 2014 how he got here up with the now-infamous swear line throughout the unique improvement of Last Fantasy 14, previous to its very first launch in 2010.
As chronicled within the video beneath, Fox explains that he was trying to create a fictional swear line for Last Fantasy 14’s characters with an actual punch. He was tasked with naming the sport’s 12 gods and, with the problem of making a swear behind his thoughts, requested for one of many gods to be named “Thal” particularly in order that he create the punchy line, “Thal’s bloody balls.”
Sq. Enix as an alternative wished the god to be referred to as “Naldthal,” which Fox did not actually assume gelled with the “bloody balls” half. Thal was simply the common god of the afterlife, however Fox requested the identify be cut up in two, thus creating “Nald’Thal” as we all know them right this moment: the double-aspect god with two distinct components.
This was all within the pursuit of “Thal’s bloody balls,” which Fox succeeded in pulling off. Nonetheless, there’s one other layer to this story. As a part of the method for submitting Last Fantasy 14 for certification, textual content wanted to be current at each a part of the sport the place required, even when the textual content itself was merely a placeholder, and never consultant of the ultimate sport.
Fox had an especially tight deadline for implementing all of the dialog for the certification submission. So, slightly than fill out all of the dialog as it might be written within the last sport, he as an alternative merely pasted “Thal’s balls” mainly in every single place. So within the certification copy of Last Fantasy 14, everyone seems to be swearing. On a regular basis.
Simply final week noticed FanFest return in Las Vegas, and Fox took half in a localization panel which you’ll be able to see slightly below across the 6:58:00 minute mark. Fox revealed that, as a result of rankings boards just like the ESRB now need to see a duplicate of a sport for ranking earlier on than ever, he was once more compelled to place placeholder textual content rather than precise dialog, and you may by no means guess what he selected because the placeholder phrases.
That is proper: Thal’s balls made a return! When Endwalker was submitted for certification, mainly all of the in-game dialog for the growth merely learn “Thal’s balls,” as a number of screenshots within the panel above attest to. Fox mainly rehashed a decade-old trick to save lots of time in improvement, and it was all primarily based round a swear.
Elsewhere within the panel, fellow localizer Kathryn Cwynar revealed that she really pulled off an identical trick whereas localizing Shadowbringers. The developer had a wild quantity of textual content to localize in simply three days, so slightly than plot all of it out fastidiously as she went alongside, she as an alternative blurted out a “stream of consciousness” rather than last textual content, considered one of which noticed the participant character saying “may die, however eh,” which is a giant temper.
When Cwynar was going again via the textual content to edit it, she really determined to go away within the placeholder textual content as last dialog, which is how we ended up with one of the vital underrated traces in Shadowbringers.
”Would possibly die, however eh.” Finest a part of Shadowbringers to me thus far. [spoiler] from r/ffxiv
Last Fantasy 14’s Dawntrail growth is slated to launch subsequent yr in summer season 2024, and now we won’t assist however surprise what different form of localization nonsense will probably be happening behind the scenes within the run-up to its launch. Till then, we have Last Fantasy 14 patch 6.5 to look ahead to in October, which is able to assist set the stage for the brand new growth.
Take a look at our greatest MMORPG information should you’re in search of one thing new to sink your time into earlier than then.
