I don't know when the actual timeline on this was, but I get the feeling it's a very early and relatively unfinished map (though I guess the sheer scale would be impressive back then). It's mostly a flat plane with little to find, and seems like an early terrain experiment before they got better at making denser and more interesting outdoor level design. The various Ultimate Edition changes help but there's only so much that can be done with a map as simple as this (without outright adding a bunch like G59 does).
Semfry wrote:I don't know when the actual timeline on this was, but I get the feeling it's a very early and relatively unfinished map (though I guess the sheer scale would be impressive back then). It's mostly a flat plane with little to find, and seems like an early terrain experiment before they got better at making denser and more interesting outdoor level design. The various Ultimate Edition changes help but there's only so much that can be done with a map as simple as this (without outright adding a bunch like G59 does).
The original ver was even more empty (lacked that small rock formation + palm at the final lake, and the big valley ONLY has that Merc ship and had no interior, there were also no enemies). It was definitely far from being finished, however it was supposed to be themed after a hot desert area and wasn't rainy, the merc ship was another level entirely and there was probably going to be more locations.
Whatever Pancho planned was probably not fit for UE1, especially for the computers in that era.
Yeah I guess the alternative is that the idea of an actual open desert map was explored here but then deemed too hard to pull off convincingly within the hardware confines Unreal was designed for.
