Destitute in Chains

Created by REMkings

"We mortals are but shadows and dust. Shadows and dust."
- Proximo (Gladiator)

Hello and welcome to my very first map in Halo 4, called "Destitute in Chains". This map is a reimagination of my first Infection map from Halo Reach, and also my most popular map in terms of both downloads, publicity and feedback: "Lone Souls in a Lost Mine".

Lone Souls in a Lost Mine (LSIALM) was my personal favorite map from the ones I built myself, because it was scary, dark and had a very strong theme. It was also highly focussed on teamwork and discouraged you from running and gunning, but rather drew you back to realize in what kind of frightening and hopeless situation you happened to be in. I simply had to bring it back in a new liveform to give back to all the people that gave me such great reactions about it and really helped me to improve my overall forging skills.

And that's where the story of Destitute in Chains begins. I wanted to use this project to get used to Halo 4's Forge mechanics and at the same time see what things were possible with the new Flood mode and what changed in relation to Infection.

Turning LSIALM into DinC

So, you remade this mine map from Reach. But why didn't you just literally remake LSIALM instead of only making a reimagination, REMkings?
Well, it is for four reasons that I did it this way.
1. It's more fun to only take parts from the previous map and add new ones. It's also more original than to simply remake everything, and makes it more of a challenge.
2. I wanted to use the new features from Halo 4's forge pallet such as dynamic lighting, the new blocks (pallets ftw!) and the addition of two lights to the previous amount of 2, thus having 4 lights at my disposal.
3. I simply couldn't literally remake it, because we no longer have Forgeworld and I had to adapt to the natural environment of Erosion. (Which was by far most suitable in my opinion.) The same goes for the looks of some of the blocks in Halo 4 that would no longer fit in a mine map because they don't look woody or rocky enough anymore.

4. Halo 4's Flood mode also plays differently than Reach's Infection. I had to adapt the map to fit with the gametype.

In this map I brought back several of the key things that were present in Lone Souls in a Lost Mine. Such as:

The L-shaped room

The furnace

The elevator shaft

The elevator itself

The minecart

Some of the changes that were made in Halo 4 allowed me to make the map scarier than before. These changes include the addition of dynamic lighting, the fact that active camouflage now actually works the way it should, and the removal of health bars and -packs. I was able to combine all of these factors into a new thing that still reminds of its precessor, but also feels like a map of its own with a somewhat different playstyle. It plays best with around 10 to 13 players, but can support up to a full lobby of 16. (It might get laggy though, so that's why about 13, 14 should probably be max.)

For all of you that never played Lone Souls in a Lost Mine or never even heard about it: LSIALM was a map situated in an old and abandoned mine (though it turned out not to be that abandoned after all), that mostly focussed on cramped room setups and hallways resulting in frightening battles with the undead with a great deal of cooperation amongst fellow survivors or zombies involved.

There's not really much else to say, other than to direct you guys to a couple more screenshots as well as some video reviews of this map! Enjoy and thanks for checking out this map!

Screenshots

Videos

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pF-4-FHxZQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kpjb5A9sII

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz-8XqY4sY

Surprisingly enough the map took 2nd place in Insanmiac's Best of the Dead contest, even though it was barely finished by the time and still had lots of bugs.

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fgHli4SNGdA

Finally, make sure to download the gametype (Shadows and Dust) as well: it will not be as much fun if you don't use it.

Download map - Destitute in Chains

Download gametype - Shadows and Dust

- A special thanks to everyone who helped me test and improve this map. Thank you for helping me if you did! -