Ascent visuals contain Korean nonsense and poor translations

Ascension is a pretty damn two-stick shooter, but some Korean players have taken issue with the liberal (and sometimes downright incorrect) use of the language of cyberpunk play.

The cyberpunk genre has long had a love story with Asian iconography which is often used as a backdrop, usually in the form of neon signs. Despite this visual obsession, cyberpunk media rarely expose genuine respect for the peoples and cultures from which it borrows. Ascension, which launched for Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, and PC on July 29, looks no different, as the developers have sprinkled its world with a ton of Korean text that barely makes sense.

When Ascension happened last month, people almost immediately noticed that there was something wrong with the Korean text used in its environments. Some errors, like mirrored text on the game’s title screen, are just plain weird. Like underline By Twitch streamer GoNando, “술집” is Korean for “bar,” while the characters used in the screenshot below don’t even exist in Korean.

Equally glaring problems were reported on To smoke and Reddit in the following days Ascension, and without an official word from the developer, people think the translations may have been done by a machine rather than someone fluent in the language. And earlier today, a series of screenshots started to gain momentum that allegedly display more reverse text and incorrect use of Korean.

Even as someone who doesn’t speak Korean, it’s easy to see where Ascension developer Neon Giant has gone wrong. Take the word “부문” from one of those Twitter screenshots, for example. While a quick Google Translate says it means “sector,” which makes it a totally appropriate thing to have painted on the floors of your cyberpunk complex, people who know Korean say it’s in fact closer to “category” or “classification”.

It’s impressive that only 12 people were able to make a game as beautiful as Ascension, but that’s probably what contributed to his problems with Korean as well.

Kotaku contacted Neon Giant but did not receive a response until publication.

It’s hard to paint Ascension as malicious in its misuse of Korean, but when you aestheticize your game with references to a language spoken by over 75 million people, you should probably ask someone who is fluent to check your work.