The Hell Galaxy development team is pleased to welcome you to another dev diary.
In the last two entries, we explored the creation of the Extractor and the process of bringing a raider to life. When successful, this process results in a new bio-machine hybrid, ready to endure its exile in Neterun. But what happens when the process fails?
This question guided us as we explored the more fragmented corners of our universe. The result was the creation of the E-Was, failed raiders whose installation process went awry, which we discussed in a previous article. Alongside the E-Was, we envisioned the places where they are abandoned: the Dumps. These eerie graveyards, which we’ll delve into today, have already made an appearance in the game demo.
A Dump represents everything lost when you’re cast into the Galaxy of Neterun. Picture this: you’ve just been extracted, stripped of your past life because the Imperials demand resources. You’ve already lost everything you once were. Your consciousness is sent to another galaxy, but something malfunctions, and you’re left stranded in these raider graveyards, the Dumps.
The Dumps are fragmented realms of decay. Space debris drifts among crumbling structures that dissolve into the void. While this desolate environment might yield some valuable loot, it more often reveals the remnants of unborn raiders, decomposed hybrids, relics of a vanished humanity. Massive wrecks of capital ships lie dormant. The victorious salvage what they can to rebuild, while the defeated leave behind only faint echoes of lost brainwaves, scattered among the stars.
Visually, the Dumps evoke a sense of desolation. Totem-like antennas, bristling with sharp needles and constructed from cables twisted into rib cage-like shapes, echo the Extractor’s eerie form. Everything here is torn apart, left to decay, a perpetual monument to a failed exile. The Dumps underscore the Imperials’ callous view of raiders as disposable tools. Raiders, eternal prisoners of this galaxy, are left to survive however they can: by forging their own rules and serving their penance.
Much like the space stations we built from distorted raider memories post-Extraction, the Dumps were designed to feel even more fragmented. They’re graveyards for the unborn, filled with skeletal remains of failed warriors and heaps of scrap metal scattered on the outskirts of Neterun’s raider colonies.
That concludes this dev diary, and we look forward to sharing more with you in the next one.
Farewell, raiders!
