Grouping a large set of things for this write up, as I don’t have a lot to say for any of these individually, but lets talk about the Killing Floor 2 ports I made of the Metroid Prime 2: Echoes multiplayer maps, going in order of release (which likely is also the order I actually made them in, as I feel like I remember releasing one then immediately starting another).
Sidehopper Station
First up is Sidehopper Station, which is also the biggest oddball of the group, as its not using the original terrain from Prime 2. Instead, this is recreation of my Half-Life 2: Deathmatch recreation. Unfortunately, this comes with a few problems, as Killing Floor 2 really wasn’t designed to use brush based maps. Most noteably is the complete lack of any support for the game’s splattermap system, so blood is just not really much of a thing on this map.
As everything in the original Source Engine based recreation was done by eye (by having the original map open in Prime World Editor and then just estimating it), this port carries over all its various inaccuracies and creative liberties too, while also adding some of its own.
Namely the extra platform in the middle and connection through to the central room. I can only assume I added said connection for a gameplay reason, as it isn’t there in my HL2:DM version.
Something I’d completely forgotten that took me by suprise when going to take these screenshots were the random skiffs I added above the outer platforms. I clearly did this to add more spawn points for the Zeds, rather than just having them come from the main hallways, so that’s honestly not a bad creative liberty.
Weldable doors were also added to the entrances to the main halls, which looks a bit odd, but at least worked.
As with my original HL2:DM recreation, these hallways were completely barren, lacking the pillars jutting out of the walls and gap in the roof.
But hey there’s a little Metroid in a tank. I think I had them moving up and down and chirping in the HL2:DM version, but didn’t know how to replicate a basic path movement in Unreal 3, so I just left them static and silent.
Except for this poor guy in the middle room, who’s just dead upside down. This tank in HL2:DM had a sloppily made Phazon puddle in the bottom, but I didn’t know how to replicate the shape of displacements, so I ignored it.
The middle room is also very featureless, even more so than in HL2:DM, which at least had a sloppy attempt at sticking something onto the wall.
Said middle room also has this pointless back platform jutting off it, with another of those spawning skiffs, except it seems to have crashed into the platform.
Really I think I just wanted an excuse to put more fire particles around…
One thing I noticed while running around this map for these screenshots was how much brighter it is compared to my HL2:DM version. As in, you can actually see things in this one, but I’ll save complaining about the original recreation for when I bother to make a write up on it.
Shooting Gallery
Shooting Gallery was the second map I did, with a noticeable jump in quality; especially visually (as the terrain is now directly imported from the original game).
First of all is the presence of a dedicated lobby room seperate from the main map, preventing late joiners from awkwardly appearing in the main map during gameplay. Though the attempt to recreate the glow on the save station leaves a lot to be desired, and the room’s lighting is a bit odd, but it was better than nothing.
While I say Shooting Gallery was an increase in quality (probably the best playing of this set honestly), it still had quite a few flaws. Namely this area where a turret is in the original map (here replaced with a Trader Pod), which is WAY too easy to defend thanks to the large open courtyard and occasional pathfinding difficulties causing the Zeds to take ages to reach the top centre. I know that I added spawns on the walls above to try and mitage the issue, but they always seemed to rarely get used.
The water in the courtyard and elsewhere in the map is also entirely cosmetic, though I did end up placing voice triggers around them, specifically ones complaining about smells.
I wasn’t yet importing the original skyboxes from Prime 2 for these, instead opting to take the sky and lighting objects from Black Forest and fiddle with them. While this lighting looks nothing like the original Prime 2 lighting for Shooting Gallery, I think it turned out alright at least; call it a different intrepration.
Did forget to put a Grapple Point model on that hanging part though…
Did also have a bit of fun with Trader Pods in this map, placing them where Kinect Orb Cannons and the turret would have been in the original game. This did have the nice side effect of spacing them out well enough (not that these maps are very large to begin with but hey).
Shooting Gallery may also have been a point where I figured out how to get materials to contribute to lighting directly? Not too sure about that, but the way the tunnels are lit don’t look like I just slapped lights haphazardly around? If I did, then its honestly not too bad.
The normals on the meshes could really have done with being smoothed out or something though, check out those seams.
Shooting Gallery in general is a map I have a soft spot for, as I don’t think I did TOO bad a job converting it over to Killing Floor 2 with this one. I know me and my friend group would often gravitate towards it when we played any of my maps.
Pipeline
Poor Pipeline however did not fare so well if you ask me. The thumbnail alone shows one of my really odd choices, that being to sloppily slap Spider Ball Track “ladders” around. Those look really bad…
Which is a shame, as the upper room of the map honestly looks alright if you ask me. I think I was really getting into my “oooh shiny glowy materials” phase at this point, as there’s a lot of stuff that are self illuminated, although the original map had a lot of them too so that’s not entirely my fault.
The random doors are back, one at the end of each side of the two tunnels. Gameplay wise they were honestly a decent addition, but visually they look very tacked on, being set back into the tunnels so they don’t visibly slide out through the walls.
The tunnels themselves also show me understanding how to do some basic material animations, replicating the original game’s own ones with the lights flowing along the red bars. Honestly? It still looks pretty nice.
And then you go to the lower area and everything falls apart. The normals issue is REALLY obvious here, with every change in texture having a seam (as I used a MaxScript to split the original mesh based on material to make it easier for me to remake the materials) and the appearance of those ugly ass Spider Ball Tracks.
While the lower area isn’t too appealing in the original map to begin with, the lack of the water and my funky additions and oversights only makes it uglier (minus that ice reflection, that’s alright honestly).
What really kills Pipeline is its performance. For whatever reason, the lower area causes the performance to utterly tank. Either something changed over time or I just somehow… Never noticed it back then? Which would be weird as I know we played on this a lot too, not as much as Shooting Gallery, but it was still a common choice for our sessions.
Crossfire Chaos
Of all these maps, Crossfire Chaos is absolutely the most “Just Here” one of the bunch, as there’s even less for me to say about it. The first question I had while taking these screenshots was “Why did I put a Prime 1 door in a Prime 2 room?”.
I definitely didn’t care about even attempting to recreate the original lighting feel at this point, as this interpretation of Crossfire Chaos has nothing in common with the Agon Wastes-esque lighting of the original Prime 2 map, instead I went for a weird grey foggy look?
Does it look bad? Ehhhh not really? But it doesn’t look too great either honestly.
I’m almost convinced I went for that lighting solely to emphasise the blue light coming off these pillars and the lights above. I think I was also going through a brief obsession with lightshafts punching through fog, as I noticed a habit of punching those up a bit while taking these screenshots.
Poor Crossfire Chaos really didn’t have much going for it. It was already a very basic map in the original Prime 2, so I didn’t do anything to try and spice it up for this.
Hence why this is the shortest section of the write up, there’s just absolutely nothing to say. Not a bad port, but nothing memorable. Again, it’s just Kinda There.
Spider Complex
Spider Complex on the other hand, honestly surprised me in the visuals department while running around it. Visually, I think this map was the best work of the group (although the lighting felt a bit flat, but I don’t blame past me for that too much, as I’ve always struggled with making lighting look good in general).
The main visual draw is (fittingly enough) the Spider Ball Tracks (in a complete 180 from how bad my additions to Pipeline were). I feel like I replicated the original light scrolling effect really well. And honestly the blue glow of the Phazon beneath the centre ball adds to the main room quite nicely.
Despite being a bit more accurate, I apparently still couldn’t help but stick a creative liberty in in the form of this tank. I imagine it was to fill in the empty space of this room or something, but a part of me wants to say it was to have an excuse to add some lightrays again.
This other side hall does drag the gameplay down a bit, as its another long straight area with no obstructions; which is the perfect terrain to completely shut down any fodder (assuming you can actually aim even slightly decently). If anything slapping a random pillar or something in the level area halfway up would have helped it by breaking up that sight line, but now I’m just being hypocritical.
Of course I had to do something to drag the map down more, and thats how I handled these Spider Ball Tracks in the main room.
They’re invisible teleporters…
For one, that’s awfully conveyed, you just have to know that touching the base of the track suddenly means you’re up on the higher platform now. Secondly, the Zed AI doesn’t know what to do with it, leading to them running into the wall for a bit before reorienting themselves. And thirdly, as a consequence of the second point, an invisible wall is randomly on part of the back edge as a band-aid fix to stop the Zeds from falling straight back down.
This one decision of mine drags the map down quite a bit in my opinion, which is a shame, as the rest of it honestly doesn’t seem too bad. What I really should have done is add a staircase or something to connect the other hall (the one I added the tank in) to the higher area, as its a one way drop down in its final state.
While these five maps were the ones that got released, there’s still a bit more to talk about. For once, a Critiquing Past Works write up reaches into the Scrapped Mods category. And thus, we move on to the one map that was completely left out of this set.
Spires
While it never got released, Spires WAS made. But is the map that I really question what I was doing with the theming of. Rather than going with the normal Temple Grounds theming, I decided to theme it after Dark Aether???
I still have absolutely no idea why I did that. A part of me thinks it was a desire to use a purple lighting set up, another part of me thinks I just wanted to slap some Ing props around. Either way, Spires is a map that had its main gimmick from the original game utterly gutted even more so than Spider Complex did.
In place of the two Kinectic Orb Cannons that make up the original map’s main transit, I opted to slap some portals in. Only two are used for gameplay, the other ones are inactive and just for decoration. Thankfully the game already uses portals (in fact that particle is from an existing map, though I’ll be damned if I can remember which one) so the Zeds pathfinding is set up to accomodate for it well enough.
All the theming was entirely cosmetic (thank god, can you imagine having to try and deal with the Dark World gimmick in a game like Killing Floor?). This did mean that these Phazon spots scattered around are completely harmless, which is very silly and definitely feels like I cared more about ashetics than consistency.
Said focus on ashetics did fall flat on its face when it came to the Light Crystals, specifically my attempt to recreate the bubble of light effect. Its a bit ugly lets be honest, but the light coming off the crystals is honestly alright (and is the main non-sky form of light). As said previously, these were also entirely cosmetic, with the crystals just occasionally getting in the way.
I apparently also decided to throw in what I believe is meant to be the Sky Temple just above? The lighting on this thing makes no sense, as its completely pitch black and also has glowing parts, but doesn’t cast any shadow OR any light on the map below?
I was absolutely burnt out by the point I was making Spires, as working with the older Unreal Editors has always frustrated me. I might have also been growing a disdain towards the game around this point in time? Its hard to remember when exactly that happened, but either way, Spires suffered for it and thus never saw the light of day beyond being salvaged and uploaded here.
But it wasn’t the only one of the maps to be left behind as I moved on from Killing Floor 2. While the other five maps were done and released, one stuck out like a sore thumb, and I’d planned for a while to bring it up to speed with the others, but it too was left behind.
Sidehopper Station Remake
Sidehopper Station was supposed to also receive the “Original Terrain Import” treatment, but just like Spires it was left to the wayside. Of the maps with a lobby, this is the only one not to use a Save Station, instead using the interior of the gunship.
Some of the creative liberties from the original version are still here, such as the spawning skiffs and central platform. Although the central platform seems to more of a Luminoth architecture, which makes absolutely no sense…
As I couldn’t just slice a hole in the central wall, the extra connection to the main station is gone again.
As are the doors in the halls, due to the wider passages and thinner walls.
Also the lighting here is just weird, everything is brown, even the interiors which should really be blue. The original map in Prime 2 is also more of a dark grey thanks to its lightmaps, so really things should be that colour. But no, Tallon IV brown it was…
Honestly this remake just looks so bland. Like yeah the terrain is a hell of a lot better as its the original stuff from Prime 2, but all of my weird lighting flares from the other maps are just completely absent. Bland is really the best way to describe this version, and I wonder if I thought so at the time or if I was just at the end of my rope and didn’t want to touch the game’s SDK any more.
Either way, that was it, I don’t think I ever mapped for Killing Floor 2 again beyond this point (I had ideas to do stuff with some Prime Hunters maps, but barely even concepted them let alone got them playable). I barely even touch the game any more, ever since the DLC weapons fiasco and the fact that its just so bloated (I had to reinstall the game to take these screenshots and its a good 92GB(!) at this point).
But hey, the released maps are still up on the Workshop and all of them (minus poor Crossfire Chaos) have a decent rating so clearly there’s some appreciation for them from someone.