Geyser

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Geyser
The land where trees nary grow... It sleeps in a dry lake bed...
Profile
Inhabitant	Kame
Quadrant	D3
Connecting Quadrants	C3 D2 D4 E3
Stage Number	03
Seamless Designer	Koji Hasegawa (hw)
Theme (E3)

Geyser (間欠泉) is the developer name given to the arena of the 9th colossus.

Description

A desolate land covered in black clouds. There are geysers all over the place, spewing out water with great force on a regular basis. If Wander touches a geyser, he will be blown away.

Location

The arena is located on the west side of the Ancient Lands, close to Round Stone Hill, at quadrant D3.

Trivia

• In the preview version of the game, the colossus' dry lake bed was full of water, and it was possible to avoid its attacks by swimming on it.
• The trees by the entrance of the arena are named as "I4_trees" and "crater_trees", and were originally from the unused arena of Phoenix, named Crater.
• In the E3 Demo version of the game, a cutscene (with no camera panning) with the song 'Sign of the Colossus' plays when first finding this arena. However, this cutscene was discarded in the final version.
• A super low resolution texture of D3 from preview builds shows an earlier version of the arena with more geysers. It had seven in total instead of the four from the final game.
• There is substantial evidence pointing to Geyser being located at the quadrant 'I3' at a previous point in development. They are as follows:
  • The PS3 data sheets list no low resolution textures ('slow_i3') for I3, meaning its slow map texture did not have 'I3' in its name; this means it was a Colossus arena and that the texture was named after the developer nickname for it (ie. 'slow_gysr_mip' instead of 'slow_i3').
  • The I3 seen on the early pause menu map is nigh-identical to Geyser in terms of shape and geometry; both are circular plains of almost the exact same size surrounded by mountains, with large caves flanking them on the side.
  • There exists an old texture segment for Geyser called 'geyser_14' containing matching textures to Crater, Phoenix's arena; these textures only exist in those two areas and nowhere else. This suggests Geyser used to be right next to I4, with the only option being I3.
  • One of the textures used in I2 is called 'sk_gnd_stone_a01_mip'; said texture is only used on Geyser, the old Geyser and the areas situated on the eastern side of the Ancient Lands, such as Dune and Shimooki's (the field designer responsible for the east) tests; heavily suggesting I2 was near it.
  • An old and unused texture segment relating to Geyser called 'geyser_par_erea_gate' lists the same texture used in I2's mountains, 'sk_rwl_canyon_yelw_a001_mip', which is only used on a handful of texture segments (I2, old Geyser, st25a and Shimooki's tests). This could suggest that the cave seen in I2 once led to Geyser.
  • There exists an old test of Geyser called 'shimo_test_p', clearly referencing the Team Ico field designer Mitsuhiro Shimooki, whose tests in the sheets are all exclusively of the Eastern quadrants and primarily of I2. In fact, the similarly-named 'shimo_test_p1' and 'shimo_test_p2' texture segments are quite likely just I2 with a different name, since they list the exact same textures.
  • The E3 demo version of Geyser is called 'geyser_d3' (it is named geyser_geyser in the final version), suggesting that it did not originally belong to that quadrant (canossa_d6, sanctuary_f8, proto_f3 being prototypical examples of this naming scheme).

Gallery

• Original
• Remake
• Earlier versions

The geysers.

The Crater trees by the entrance.

The 9th colossus' cave.

The distinct hill mound of Geyser.

Top view of Geyser.

The Crater trees in the remake.

Concept art of the 9th colossus' cave from the PS4 remake.

Concept art of another take on the 9th colossus' cave from the PS4 remake.

The inside of the cave in the preview version, filled with water.

Super low resolution texture of D3 with the seven geysers.

The Ancient Lands World Era 3 World Era 2 Retail Map Beta Map (fan recreation)