Happy fall from the team, We will put out some tasty updates soon, but FIRST it is #Blocktober! We wanted to not only post images, but also show how our maps have progressed and evolved.

Xen A - The Badlands

For the first map of Xen, we wanted to capture the desolate feeling of the original HL1 map, while putting our own spin on it. In the original, the desolation of the outer islands gave way to more life as you accessed the interior of the level, which was a theme we expanded on across multiple maps. Our version of the badlands is rocky, with patches of water and arid plants, but no soil for true, vibrant Xenian life to grow. This is the first of the multiple biomes that players will progress through in the Xen chapter.

First Blockout - Houndeye Arch Island

This was the first version of the Houndeye Arch Island, following our original and detailed plans for Xens first map. This was built directly off the paper plan. This first version was extremely basic in scale and style, and although it captured the core ideas, we would not truly understand some of the underlying flaws in its construction until we progressed further down the art pipeline.

First Blockout and Art Experimentation

We began to experiment with textures and artstyle, using the early version of this island as a base. We originally went for something colored similarly to the original Xen, except utilizing a dark base rock to bring about the feel of a desolate wasteland. We took a more realistic approach to the skybox, using brightly colored nebulae to remind the player of the original Xen feel, but attempted to keep it more grounded in reality. The environmental light source was a giant black hole in the sky, which we eventually deemed too distracting.

Here you can see the art continuing to evolve as we sculpted the island a bit more and started utilizing some new props and textures. The arch prop was amazing, but we felt like it did not fit the way the island had been built. And this led to...

Second Blockout

It was at this point we identified some of the fundamental issues with the way the map had been constructed. It was not hitting the correct notes for scale or for player guidance. One of our mappers did a significant rework of the entire map, rebuilding every island from scratch, aiming for a far better sense of grand scale. For the screenshot, focus on how the surrounding landscape frames the arch in a better way:

Second Blockout and Art Experimentation

It was with this second revision that we continued to build the maps art style. The green Xenian feel from the original was moved to a later map, to represent a more lush Xenian biome. We went with giving the Badlands a purple feel. The screenshot shows how we changed to more of a galaxy cloud style skybox, heavily inspired by Homeworld. We made progress on the lighting and the feeling of the level. We trimmed the island down, and made the arch feel like a gateway to the rest of the map, to guide the player and frame the next section.

Final Art Pass

Lastly, there is the more completed level, which we have shown off previously. We completely rebooted the skybox, based the level lighting off of it, and did a proper rock and small foliage pass. We went for lighter base textures for the rock to better play with the light colors and feel. Even this shot, which we considered final art for the game, has seen a number of improvements on the dev side since we previously revealed it.
Thanks for reading. More to come.