I've tried to fiddle around with some mods and I've scoured the workshop for what I'm looking for, but I think for this question I ought to ask around. What mods could I download that make a truly evil Galaxy, evil in the sense of horrors beyond understanding and a Galaxy that is just cruel to life in general.
It would seem, with the latest unveilling of the last Illuminate subfaction (being a hot pot of all the Illuminate units combined), the dream of Cultists is finally dead, to the disappoint of some and the surprise of none, I'm sure.
With all the talk of the Cultists being scrapped prior, then the immediate drop of the 'Face the Unknown' teaser, it really seemed like Arrowhead was going to knock this update out of the park with the potential of the Cultists finally being realized, only for much disappointment to follow in the realization that just wasn't going to happen. I'm pissed, a lot of people are pissed.
The Illuminate are the least-developed faction, I don't think anybody would argue against that. Compared to the Automatons and the Terminids, the Illuminate have always had the least amount of units despite the potential being right there for the faction. So...why? Why has Arrowhead fumbled yet again and left the Illuminate feeling like a jumbled mess?
The reason given for the Cultists not being added was something along the lines of "not fitting into the vision." To play Devil's Advocate, I can see what Arrowhead was trying to go for; The First Galactic War had left the Illuminate scattered, either being forced to flee the galaxy or be genocided by Super Earth. For them to return as a faction, they would have to shed their former beliefs of pacifism and embrace a warlike culture with what limited numbers they had, using old technology that wasn't stolen by Super Earth. This is why the Voteless exist, the Illuminate, during the invasion of Calypso, lacked the numbers to invade it with just pure Illuminate alone, but the advent of the Voteless has turned the Illuminate from an overwhemingly advanced alien threat into CoD Zombieslop.
But surely the Illuminate wouldn't lose all of their culture from the last war, right? Surely, they would still have that mystical element with Illusionists and Outcasts and such? Sadly, the number of Non-Illuminate units within the Illuminate faction overshadow the actual Illuminate themselves, of which we only have 3 (The Overseers, not counting the ones that pilot Exo-Mechs), with the rest of the Illuminate faction being either their machines, or the mindless masses.
The fact that the Illuminate have sort of been sidelined in their own faction is, really, the main problem with the faction. Your focus isn't drawn to Overseers, it's drawn to the Voteless, or the Harvesters, or the Crushers, or the Wretches. The Appropriators subfaction tried to fix this by making the Illuminate front-and-centre with none of the Mindless Masses...and are still outnumbered by Obtruders, anyway! Not to mention the extinction of the Stingray and the GUTTING of the Leviathans (I liked Leviathans outside Megacities, fucking fight me) made it feel more like we were fighting a faction wearing an Illuminate skinsuit rather than being the Illuminate.
If I were given the chance to rebuild the Illuminate from scratch, the philosophy I would go in with is that the Illuminate themselves should never feel overshadowed; An Overseer, no matter what variant, should always be your primary focus. The Overseers as they are are relatively fine, the Elevated Overseers are fucking annoying but they're not entirely unfair, but the Illuminate should be the centre-point of the Faction. New Overseer variants, I feel, maybe 3 or 4 would make the Illuminate feel more like the Illuminate.
Another problem the current Illuminate suffer from, I think, is a lack of a face. All the Overseers wear helmets that hides their appearance, and blowing off their helmet just blows off their head instead of breaking it.
TL;DR, the Illuminate in HD2 have been completely stripped of their identity and potential to become Zombieslop to appeal to CoD filth.
I was hyped for the new Square Sandbox map. Sure, Hawaii was just another tropical Square map, but I was hoping it would look different enough to warrant using over the current Tropical Square map.
The left image is the old Tropical (Azores) and the right image is Hawaii. How incredibly disappointing. The two Square desert maps have different surrounding terrain, the two Square Alpina maps have different surrounding terrain, so why don't these ones!?
Genuinely a shame that they did the bare minimum and just...switched around the foliage and changed nothing else.