"When you're this deep in trouble, you'll need more than a rifle to work your way out..."

Nautilus is a standard infection map set in a predominantly natural sea floor environment. The map has a primary emphasis on run-and-gun play which is often not the case in infection maps. The goal is to encourage group and/or solo movement throughout the map while still allowing for temporary holdouts and group ups. Changes in height are not dramatic or forced and the infected can used their increased jump height to navigate paths not as accessible by the survivors.

A Step In A Different Direction

For those that know me, I don't really build standard infection maps. Raid: The Dust Palace used Infection as a base for it's Minigame elements and my my map, Whisper's Shadow is just a converted version of my puzzle map, Rust Garden.

I wanted to really break away from the norm of infection. No, "Abandoned Station", "Infected Labs", "Destroyed City" etc etc. I wanted to create a unique and fun playspace to play infection in without overwhelming, regular themes. Nautilus will place players in a mysterious and detailed environment and it's my hopes that it will be a go to for infection fans. Depths may be a picky beast, but it was fun to Forge on all the same.

The Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

When building Nautilus, I wanted to take a stab at traditional infection play as well. I feel many infection maps fall prey to the holdout spot flu , where regardless of all the cool things to see in the map, players just pile into the same spot each round. I tried to apply some of my knowledge with core maps here and encourage movement and natural flow without being heavy handed in the process. Each part of the map has it's advantages and disadvantages and they interact in a puzzle piece type of way.

There are still spots that boast as temporary holdout but I also made sure to include classic hiding spots as well as cool areas where the players can blend into their surroundings to evade enemies

A Story To Be Told

I like to include lore with all of my maps where I can, and Nautilus is no exception. Let's dive in!

Wars are never cheap, and the battle against an alliance of alien races hell bent on the destruction of humanity is no exception. The UNSC had a massive bill to front in the war and an even bigger shopping list to fuel the means of war. Resources are key. The inner colony planet of Ballast was rich in raw material buried deep in it's vast underwater mountains. In 2539 the UNSC commissioned the construction of a Taft-Mega Pipeline to extract these materials in bulk accompanied by several Undersea Thermal Windmills to generate power from the powerful thermal drifts below.

Project Nautilus was completed in a few short years and operated until 2547 when the planet came under siege by Covenant forces. The station and it's facilities were evacuated and even though the UNSC proved victorious in the end, the system was never fully activated again. It now stands as a monolith to unified human effort and technological prowess.

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Like always, I wanna hear what you think!
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