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WELCOME!
Greetings, friends and fellow Necromunda fans.
We hope this message finds you well, and that you’re having a great week so far.
As promised, we’re back today with a new DevBlog entry – one that will this time be entirely dedicated to the presentation of the game’s numerous environments!
Like we briefly mentioned in our last DevBlog #2 – Game Modes, all 26 of Necromunda: Underhive Wars’ maps will be playable in each of the title’s 3 main Game Modes (Story, Operations and Skirmish). More than just a nice scenic backdrop for the action to take place in, each one of these hand-crafted environments has been specifically tailored to provide you with fun and meaningful tactical opportunities, across different types of scenarios and objectives.
From smaller arenas designed for brutal close-quarters engagements, to sprawling vertical complexes surrounded by jaw-dropping vistas, we’ve worked really hard to recreate the many iconic (and treacherous) landscapes of the Underhive, in ways that would both stay true to the source material, as well as expand upon its original grimdark vision of Mankind’s far-future.
While our two past DevBlog entries have been rather text-heavy, we thought we’d change the formula for today’s installment, in order to let the environments themselves do the talking.
And so, without further ado, we invite you to grab a cup of your favourite beverage, make yourselves comfortable, and dive right in.
[…]
JOURNEY THROUGH THE UNDERHIVE
Synth Still
Linked together by an unfathomable number of derelict pipes and ducts, endless fields of immense cisterns are used to hold the myriad of dangerous chemicals produced and discharged by the Hive’s restless manufactorums.
Cargo Dome Arena
In a place once rumoured to be a prime hauling site for stolen freight now lies an infamous arena, used by underhive gangs in no-holds-barred, merciless contests of survival, where fortunes are won and lives lost.
Hangar
Once a bustling transport center filled with the noises of endlessly transiting cargo, this ramshackle hangar has now become a locus of violence among the local gangs, vying with the utmost ferocity for every remaining scrap of salvageable materials.
Hangar Roof
This towering structure was once walked by the logistics overseers responsible for the uninterrupted conveyance of goods below. It is now a heavily contested vantage point, fought over by gangs wishing to survey and control the surrounding territory.
Switchyard
Acting as a connection hub between several ancient rail lines, this rotating dome also contains various storage warehouses and infrastructure facilities, vital to the transport wagons linking the hive’s different sectors.
Switchyard Alley
A former housing block soon reclaimed by the unrelenting sprawl of machines and industry, this old passage has witnessed countless generations of maintenance workers accountable for the ceaseless flow of equipment and merchandise within its grounds.
Switchyard Roof
This flooded facility once acted as the nerve center of all transport operations held within its dome. Nestled in a strategic location, the site has long since been overrun, fought over and fortified by Gangs eager to use it as a base of operations.
Gunshell Factorum
This complex is known to have produced untold numbers of Macrocannon shells – gigantic ballistic casings produced here before moving on to assembly, and finally being shipped off-world, to fuel the edifice-sized gun batteries used by the Imperial Navy’s warships in devastating broadside volleys.
Gunshell Yard
An industrial waste pile, filled with abandoned ordinance and rubble from the foundry above. Countless gangs and scavengers have stalked these halls, eager to scrape a living from the mountains of discarded shells amidst the fumes of molten alloys.
Abandoned Infirmary
Over the millennia, many complexes such as this one were built to house the medical amenities, supplies and specialized equipment used for the provision of summary healthcare services required to maintain each Sector’s production quotas.
Palanite Commissary
This fortified outpost lies in a strategic location guarding access to the Sectors beyond. Once occupied by a garrison of Hive Primus Enforcers, the run-down barracks within now serve as a formidable redoubt for Gangs bold enough to claim them.
Discharge Station
Arrays of unstable plasma coils used to be brought here for discharging into massive power cells. Dangerous work to be sure, on top of which the frequent energy surges were also known to attract exotic – and often lethal – types of underhive creatures.
The Arboretum
With flora cultivation being next to impossible in the underhive, entire domes were dedicated to the growth of but a few specimens. Far too costly to use as food sources, these plants and their fungal parasites are instead harvested for the production of various chem components.
Stinger Mould Sprawl
Originally constructed as a docking station used for the triage and dispatching of organic cargo, this facility was then expanded to accommodate growing beds of exotic fungi species – the spores of which have long ago begun to spread in a completely untamed manner.
Gear Factorum
Many generations of workers have spent their whole lives ensuring that this factory’s giant smelters, conveyors and metalworking machines would never come to a halt. Relentless cogs in a wheel – just like the objects they were forced to produce.
Nautica Station
With water being such a rare commodity in the hive’s lower levels, many facilities were built to store and purify the few available reserves. As new Sectors were added on top of old ones, some of these installations were abandoned, forgotten or deemed too polluted to maintain.
Heat Sink Epsilon 73
Deep within the Hive are many giant power stations. Using any and all possible sources of energy, they generate the enormous amounts of power required to fuel the continued extraction and transformation of every ounce of the planet’s available resources.
Water Still
Enormous receptacles and treatment facilities were once built to collect, decant and process the precious water found in the noxious liquids that percolate in the frozen and still wastes of the Hive’s entrails.
Chemical Pools
An inevitable byproduct of the industry above, untold amounts of toxic and irradiated chemicals are continuously discharged to the lower levels of the Hive. Extremely dangerous, these oozing effluents are nonetheless reprocessed to extract any possible remaining value.
Abandoned Railway
Once a vital rail line for the transport of goods, this tunnel fell into disuse centuries ago when a ceiling collapse was deemed too expensive to clear. Only the Gangs now walk these halls, eager to harness the energy still produced within.
Maintenance Shaft
A utility shaft containing sewage mains, water filters, and purifiers. Thousands of miles of tunnels like this ensure the proper functioning of the Hive, with many of them having been reclaimed by Gangs using them as hideouts against rivals and Enforcers.
Conduit P9.2030-208
A ruptured cooling conduit has transformed this former maintenance tunnel into an inhospitable, frigid deathtrap, although the remaining power cells have allowed Gangs to keep using it as a place from which to conduct illicit operations.
Sludge Sea
Industrial effluence flows downhive from miles above, often creating its own path. Structural erosion and toxic miasma are constant hazards in the Underhive’s forgotten tunnels – though they are far from being the only dangers.
Corroded Catwalk
The underhive is full of labyrinthine catwalks and elevated passages, some being the only routes left connecting adjacent sectors. Gangs often occupy these strategic choke points, eager to maintain a stranglehold on any wishing to traverse them.
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