Myth@Bungie.Org

This level is clearly "a little different" from the other levels. You start with a small force of dwarves and zerks and you fight off waves of soulless. Even if you die, as long as you kill enough of them you are still allowed to proceed to the next level.

Deep in the mysterious tags.gor file, among the text bits for Ambush at Devil's Overlook, these interesting tidbits can be found:

• "Here comes our scout..."
• "Help me!!!!"
• "Grab those charges and set the ambushes."
• "We don't have long 'til the soulless get here!"
• 50% DESTROYED
• 80% DESTROYED
• 90% DESTROYED
• 99% DESTROYED
• 100% DESTROYED
• VICTORY IMMINENT
• BONUS STAGE
• BONUS ACHIEVED
• BONUS NOT ACHIEVED
• WAVE 2
• WAVE 3
• FINAL WAVE
• "There are too many soulless over there! Pull back!"
• "Great, now they're all attacking at once!"

Note that these are the tags for text which we see on the screen when dialog is spoken. So as Bungie had originally planned the 'challenging stage' we would have seen these words on the screen at some point.

The comment about too many soulless never is shown and we only hear a Berserk say, "You fool! Where do you think you are going." We never see the "Wave" text, but we do hear a horn which signals each wave. We never see the "% Destroyed" text at all.

What's more, there are five waves in the game, not four as implied in this text. Undoubtedly, this level want through some major revisions before it was completed.

More has been revealed about this level by Satan(TM), as related to Ferrex at the Myth Codex:

You obviously were not a beta tester early-on my friend. When we first got a look at "Ambush", it was not what you saw it as in the final release at all.

Basically it was set up as a game of "Galaga". You sat at the "bottom" of the lake and waited. The screen would announce "Wave 1" just like the old arcade classic. The first wave of soulless would come down in true Galaga style. You'd destroy as many of them as you could, and they would go off past you. Then "Wave 2" would come along, and so on. You got bonuses for what percentage you killed.

The bottom line was that we all hated it. It didn't mesh well with the game at all. Some suggested it be removed. Others wanted it to be a "secret level", or a level separate from the main game.

But I can't help but wonder. What is the Bonus? Can we say for sure that it isn't implemented? Has anyone out there killed 100% of the Soulless?

Yes, and the films can be found over at Myth Master Central.

Oh well. Maybe if you arranged the satchels to spell "BONUS"?

That's strange, somebody is now hitting me on the back of the head!

Right near the satchel charge stockpile is an interesting smudge on the ground. On closer inspection it appears to look like a skull.

What type of strange creature had a skull like this? Pfhor heaven's sake, I have no idea!

Thanks to the World Famous Indigo for finding this!

Written and compiled by the Myth Nontoxic crew.