Procedural generation is a pretty open-ended concept, and there are many well-documented methods for generating any kind of environment imaginable. Remnant 2 has some pretty varied environments, and most of them are proc gen’d. Hell, even just randomly assembling pre-made level chunks, which could take any form, would work really well for Darktide.
I really really want procedurally-generated maps, more than any other roguelike-adjacent feature. It could lend itself to a substantially different feel in the game and enable totally unique play modes where learning the map (a staple of the Tide games) can’t be relied upon. And it would absolutely bring more replayability to the game than 3 or 5 or even 10 new maps a year.
No, Remnant 2, like Remnant: From The Ashes, is mostly procedurally generated. It’s tile-based, and it has a lots of set pieces, but it’s almost all randomly assembled (based on a series of rules), which is the same thing as procedurally generated.
No, it’s a series of handcrafted maps, ordered randomly in your campaign. The areas have set names and are always the same, I think even enemy spawns are not randomized at all other than maybe WHICH elite shows up. Everything between loadscreens is static soulslike dungeon crawling experiences. I’m not sure what you’re talking about to be honest. That’s like the defining feature of Remnant 2
You’re incorrect. The maps are made of tiles that are randomly assembled, according to a set of rules. This is the exact definition of procedural generation. Here’s a piece referencing Gunfire’s CEO, David Adams, taking about the many levels of randomization, including randomized tile-based levels, in the game: Remnant 2 Promises to Take Procedural Generation to the Next Level
I’ve played hundreds of hours of R1 and R2. The levels are made of procedurally assembled tiles. This is but one of the many possible strategies that fall under the umbrella of procedural generation.
You seem to not understand and/or not have played Remnant 2. It has no procedural generation within each location. The world will be made up of random locations, yes, but each location is a static map with static enemies and static loot.
The article may disagree with that, but the game itself does not actually include any procedural generation within the maps. There are variants of locations iirc, based on which storyline for the world you got.
The CEO stated the game was going to have something which it didn’t end up having, in an article written by a third party source. If that was always what ended up being the case, Darktide would have weapon customization!
That video of the CEO is 3:30 long and he describes the random tile-based generation like twice in it. And I’ve played it for HUNDREDS of hours, I’ve beaten the game DOZENS of times and have almost 100%’d the items in it. You are mistaken.
I’m not sure how to tell you this without just repeating, but the locations are still static. Only the layout of that world’s map and the connections to other locations are randomized. I think some minor items are too, pulling from a pool.
Now that I think about it maybe this refers to events? These are literally just fully unique variants of the maps though. It’s not proc genned.
Procedural generation is an absolutely core part of Remnant. A lot of it is samey, and if you haven’t spent a lot of time in the game (beating it over and over), I could understand how you might not notice the randomization. However, almost every dungeon and overworld is tile-based and randomly-constructed.
EDIT: I mean, is everyone but you wrong on this? Here’s a quote from IGN’s review (as in, after the game came out):
Imagine this same setting with the hive city foreground spires, but with a dark-blue or black night sky, with a cloudy and partiually obscured moon on it. A few stars poking through holes in the clouds, and possibly the hint of a distant nebulae or a voidship above the atmosphere. Perhaps a lonly shuttle occasionally streaks across the sky high above us leaving a small faint vaportrail.
But no, we get this atmosphere destroying grey-blue box. It’s really a shame imo because I love so many aspects of the maps in this game and most of it is ruined by this terrible design choice of strange underground boxes for the skybox.
They got the atmosphere right in Vermintide 2. Many of the city and castle maps had an awesomely atmospheric skybox. Clouds, godrays, an ominous moon etc.
THIS is an atmosphere. Torches and window lights poking through the fog, spires reaching high into the night sky, an ominous and partially obscured moon. I LOVE this!
The locations aren’t procedurally generated. The order in the campaign is random. This is a pretty solid difference between what you’re saying and what it actually is.
See this? Losomn story. Stuff like Harvester’s Reach or Lemark District don’t always show up. This overworld map is randomly assembled with a few rules.
Lemark District however will always be, 1:1, the exact same, except for maybe having a closed door where the map would otherwise connect to a different one, depending on the campaign map layout. Funnily enough this particular one features a puzzle between two zones that you can just memorize because none of it is random, it’s all static. There are some zones that have two variants, named the same, where the event differs.
I’m gonna drop it here though and take away from this that you really enjoyed the procedurally generated maps in a game that doesn’t have any, which I personally find to be a more realistic stance than actually having liked procedurally generated maps, which are universally ass
There are two (non random) scenarios for each world. These scenarios always have the same intro location. But the areas within that “world” that you get outside of the main scenario are randomized to an extent. I played N’Erud several times without ever getting Terminus Station. Just random luck.
In Losomn, the way you get to the area after the first is not random. You can move in the exact same predictable path. But where that takes you can vary.
Every person talking about it I look up agrees with me: The campaign layout is randomized, the maps are static with variants depending on events and connectors not being the same every time. I think that any claim to the contrary comes down to inaccurate marketting and/or inaccurate language as to what exactly is proc genned.
Some rando on Reddit seems to agree with you? OK…?
Annnnyway, your screenshot demonstrates just one aspect of the randomization (which was covered by the CEO in that video above): that the overarching worlds have a randomized selection of dungeons and then overworld locations that are strictly associated with the possible storylines in each world.
But each overworld location (eg Morrow Parish) and each dungeon (eg The Great Sewers) are also procedurally generated from a set of possible tiles. They each get a random seed, which dictates the layout, items that can spawn in it and even which extra-random-fun-bits (like complicated set pieces and puzzles) get slapped into them (randomly). That last bit is called “injectables.”
There’s really no argument about this. The procedural generation is a core feature of the game(s). It’s the reason why you can’t just find a map of the secret location of the Engineer archetype’s crafting material, the Alien Device. The Alien Device is only available on a couple of overworld location maps, specifically Timeless Horizon and The Eon Vault, but the location is randomized. Instead of a map, you’ll find guides and tips that describe what terrain feature to look for.
Here’s a brief clip of one of the map designers talking about how they balance map making between the high-touch set pieces and procedural elements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqzQzFselOI
That’s still not procedurable generation, that’s injectable events as I mentioned. I really ought to know better than to engage with you, you’re just non stop stretching definitions and not reading what is said to you. Nice zinger with the “random reddit post” after posting what random journalists wrote.
At least anyone else reading this knows how wrong you are if they played Remnant 2. You should try playing it yourself, too
The Principle Level Designer says they leverage procedural generation. Specifically, she says:
Yea, OK, so when it comes to procedurally-generated levels and more hand-crafted levels: well first I want to say, in Remnant 2 we really pushed both of those definitions. And also played on both the strengths and weaknesses of both types of level design, and put them together more. So, in this case, you still have a lot of elements that are procedurally generated. Like as I run through Yaesha, and run through the jungle, the way you path from one place to A to B might be slightly different the next time I play. But, I will hit these very key points and key points of interest that are very statically-driven. So like, “Oh like, I’ve seen this temple before and the secret is over here, tucked to the left and crouch under here and go through the bush and there it is right. So there’s still that static element to that. And so we were really trying to play up that notion of both level design archetypes and push them in a way that it balances the weaknesses of one another with the strengths.”
I mean, if you’re correct, and the maps aren’t randomly generated from tiles, please provide me THE definitive map of Timeless Horizon.
