Beyond a small establishing shot of Wander unconscious after slaying the discarded final boss in an early storyboard for the game's ending, there exists no known images or concept art of what this iteration of Sanctuary was intended to look like. It is also possible that said shot simply depicts a generic background and has nothing related to the actual arena.
Textures of Stage 26.
In-game, the model left in I1 only exists as a very rough Beta Mountain, not having been modified much from when it was part of the height map. The textures are the same applied in most other out of bounds areas, with the exception of a path texture, which is uncommon for Beta Mountains. Its test stage lists the textures the arena used before it was transferred to the world map; they are that of a mountain, the same structure texture as the arch in I2, and a ground texture that, while common, is also present in I2.
One of the massive holes in I1.
Besides the obvious mountainous towers all over the place, there are also massive square-shaped holes throughout. Some of the 'towers' reach the highest point in the world at height position 300, being around the same height as the Shrine of Worship, and the holes are at height position -75. Likely being the highest and lowest points of the auto-generated height map.
Quadrants I0 and I1. For some reason they don't match.
The quadrants H0 and I0, which together form a massive valley, appear to have been connected to I1 at some point. Particularly in the pause menu map, where the valley seems to continue until the southwestern part of I1. In-game, however, the end of the valley doesn't seem to match to I1, with it abruptly ending in a flat wall. This can be due to evidence found in H0's and I0's models of them being mostly hand-crafted, unlike I1 which has square grid patterns in its entirety. This may imply that Sanctuary had a slightly more developed model at some point, before being replaced by an earlier version of the I1 quadrant after it was removed, in a similar fashion to Labyrinth being replaced by an older version of quadrant I7. Also, both I1 and I7 in-game are an older type of model that causes the game to crash when someone goes near them, until it was updated to the newer type every other quadrant uses by community member Wisi.
The broken bridge in I2 appears to point towards I1, potentially suggesting that I1 would have contained the opposite end of the destroyed structure.
Location[]
The location of Evis' arena in a mockup version of the early map.
It was located across the valley at the end of the 15th colossus' arena, back when it used to be located at H1.
The path in the area seemed to come from the northwestern side of the quadrant, possibly suggesting that it used to go around the Parthenon arena, instead of being directly connected to it. This path can be seen in a screenshot from the CG World magazine showing an earlier map; if I1 is placed on the side of the Parthenon seen on it, they match greatly.
Trivia[]
Originally, the I1 quadrant crashed the game whenever someone tried to fly over to it, but thanks to Wisi, this quadrant is now accessible.
By looking at the model of I1 present in the game's world, it can be noted that it is neatly divided in a square pattern, which indicates that it was likely automatically generated from a height map, with almost nothing being changed manually.
Some unused things with the "Sanctuary" name were found in the PS3 Data Sheets, which may have been related to this version of it, instead of the later one; the first were sheets for a boss view collision model named >SANCTUARY_VIEW_COL<, and the others were slow texture segments.
ColObjDefSANCTUARY_VIEW_COL sheet.
A boss view is a type of collision model that is always loaded during a colossus battle. It exists to prevent bosses from detecting the player if they're behind an object or wall. However, the 16th colossus doesn't use a view col, instead opting to use the normal collision model of the arena. The normal collision is divided into 16 pieces in a quadrant, and only the four pieces around Wander get loaded. This means that for colossi that are able to move around, using the normal collision isn't ideal. If the player is far enough from a wall collision, it will unload, and the boss will be able to see the player from behind it. As the 16th colossus is not able to move and is constantly looking down at Wander, this is not an issue.
Unused texture segments with "snctry" textures listed.
Slow models are super low (slow) resolution models created for being seen from a distance, while the high resolution models are unloaded. The texture segment of the first slow model related to Sanctuary is >texseg_slow_sanctuary<, listing two unused textures named 'slow_snctry_wall_mip', and 'slow_snctry_wall2_mip'. The second texture segment related to it is >texseg_tmp<, being some kind of test. It references the 'slow_snctry_wall2_mip' from the previous texseg, as well as the 'slow_sk_rwl_canyon_yelw_a001_mip' - a slow version of the textures used on I2's mountains, and quadrants that used to exist around it.[1] There is also a completely unused texture called 'slow_snctry_mip' that is not listed as belonging to any model.
The shortened name of the arena "snctry" on the textures may be another indication that the location was created by the environment artist Mitsuhiro Shimooki (sk), responsible for the discarded eastern side of the map. Two of its other areas that were the closest to I1 have a similar naming scheme for textures: 'slow_gysr_mip' (Geyser in I3), and 'slow_prtn_mip' (Parthenon in H1).
Gallery[]
The long path leading to a dead end. Picture taken by Nomad Colossus.
Bird's-eye view of I1.
Cut-off point of the path, with the Parthenon being slightly visible in the distance.
The H0 / I0 valley.
Inside the valley.
I1 in the pause menu map.
Comparison between the Parthenon from a map seen in the CG World magazine and I1. Scanned by Nomad Colossus.
Walkthrough