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Game News Underrail Dev Log #55: Global Map

Infinitron

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Tags: Stygian Software; Underrail

Styg published an Underrail development update today to make a surprising announcement. As part of a major upgrade planned for release before the Expedition expansion, the game will be receiving a world map feature. It's a feature that many players have asked for (and many others have mocked them for). It won't cover the entire game, but it will include the cavernous zones that have given people the most trouble. The update has screenshots and details, and also an explanation on why the map wasn't added sooner. I quote:




While our development is mostly focused on the expansion there are a couple of issues that we wanted to address before its release as we think that they will greatly influence the experience of playing the DLC as well as the base game.

First of these is the global map. This was a contested issue since the alpha versions and is probably the most frequent complaint we get from the people that have a positive view of the game as a whole. Some people may be wondering if the global map was something that was originally planned for the game and, truth to be told, I don't really remember (original plans for the game were laid almost 10 years ago now), but knowing myself I would probably implement one if I had the (time) resources that I have now. Back when I was at it alone I had to cut corners in both content and feature departments, and map is a bit of both really. Later, when the game has grown monstrously in size, even though I then had the time to add new features, a good amount of geographical inconsistencies made sure that there was no quick and easy way to produce a quality map, but instead some major rearragements were going to have to be made.

But anyway, now that we got around to doing this, here's how the map implementation looks like (new players be careful, there are minor spoilers).

We're going to have separate maps for different depths and some maps for the bigger urban areas. We've only gotten around to SGS, Lower Caves and Lower Underrail so far, but here's how the full list will probably look like:
  • Lower Caves (includes Junkyard and Hathor)
  • Upper Caves
  • Lower Underrail (includes Rail Crossing)
  • Upper Underrail
  • Black Sea
  • Foundry
  • SGS
  • DC
Core City and Institute will not be included, at least not initially, because reasons. We are, also, not going to be making any maps for "dungeon" areas and such (like GMS) unless they are part of geography of existing maps (such as Depot A being part of Lower Caves by being an extension of Junkyard).

As you can see on the screenshots, maps will (usually, but not always) record and display what useful (or not so useful) creatures and plants you've encountered there as well as other points of interest (merchants, doctors, certain quest objects). These will not be updated after the initial encounter and do not always represent the actual state of the map, but are rather meant to be used as useful auto-notes for harvesting organs and plants and such. They will typically not record robotic and human enemies. You can also add your own notes to the map. A lot of static features of the map will also reveal themselves as you explore the map so that you won't automatically know, for example, if there's a power generator on that map immediately after entering.

The map will be available in the next updated which will be released sometime before the DLC which is going to be released when it's ready. But on a serious note, I do hope to release a new update on the experimental branch at least in the near future so you guys can play with all the new stuff that we've added over the months and we can finally get this huge pile of patch notes off of our shoulders (and replace them with bug reports).

Anyway, let us know what you think about the inclusion of the global map and about this particular implementation. In the next dev log I'll probably be talking about another important, but probably less impressive, change to the base game that we're working on.
Looks very cool, as always. Any guesses what that other feature might be?
 

Jrpgfan

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I thought the lack of map added a lot to the exploration in this game, but whatever.

Atleast now those who couldn't get past this "issue" have a reason to give it another chance.
 

Stavrophore

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Great! Finally the game upgraded it's mechanics, and doesn't feel like playing games that were released 20 years back, where i had to pull paper and pen to draw a map[fortunately i've only needed that for DC]. Very convenient thing. Oh and i hope map won't reveal the connections and passages unless you already discovered them -so you won't see where the passage is heading if its still blocked by rubble, or if you never discovered it because it was hidden.
 

Axie

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rGZFkvg.png
 

thesheeep

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Finally!
Can't to wait to get my pants wet into the game again!

I really loved Underrail, but it was absolutely despite the lack of map - not because of it.
So it will be even better now.
 

Daedalos

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Seriously though, a faster walking animation or whatever would be a new GOTY worthy feature.

That and the map makes the vanilla game even more inclined
 

ArchAngel

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When I tried to replay it I made a melee Psi user but I never got far. I will be happy to try that build again when expansion arrives and all these QoL patches are done :)
 

Zdzisiu

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I am waiting for the expansion and some sweet negroid machete action.

Map will be useful. The game was perfectly playable without it, just needed a bit getting used to the layouts. But on the flip side, you could always stumble upon something new when you got lost trying to get back to civilization. Happened to me multiple times.
 

Tacgnol

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Walking speed always bothered me more than the lack of map.

Still neither made the game unplayable for me, though I did usually use the cheatengine "speed hack" function to get around a bit faster.
 

himmy

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I kind of liked that extra level of challenge from having to find your own way around, as well as all the little side-adventures I got into because I got lost on my way from a place to the other, but it did get tiresome towards the end of the game. Especially in the DC, I did end up using a map I found on the internet, so this will definitely help with my planned replay.
 

FeelTheRads

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Great! Finally the game upgraded it's mechanics, and doesn't feel like playing games that were released 20 years back,

Yeah, totally finally!
I can't wait until it plays like Skyrim!
What's with all this turn-based shit and not even first person??????

is probably the most frequent complaint we get from the people that have a positive view of the game as a whole.

Funny that this is something he can change so more people will like everything about it, but not the stupid design of the Derp Caverns. Because apparently if you don't like those you don't like the game at all.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't care about the map just make walking faster Jesus Christ

Do I have to use Cheat Engine's speed hack all the time?
 

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