Building the New Island
Work on the new 8 km × 8 km HDRP world is now underway.
The island is being designed around four major POIs:
- Military Compound & Airfield
- Large City
- Residential Neighborhood
- Shipping Port & Industrial Area
The new terrain gives us significantly larger mountains, valleys, coastline and natural separation between different areas of the map.
Roads are being designed around the geography rather than simply connecting locations with straight lines. Forests, meadows, mountain vegetation, coastlines and open areas are also being treated as distinct parts of the environment instead of covering the entire map with the same vegetation.
The goal is for traveling across the island to feel like you’re moving through an actual place rather than between four isolated game areas.
Current Development — October 2026
At this point, Dawn Upon Us is effectively entering its next major stage of development.
The foundation now centers around:
- 8 km × 8 km open world
- HDRP rendering
- Hyper-realistic visual direction
- Four major POIs
- Working player movement
- Weapon handling and combat
- AI characters
- Damage and death systems
- Large-scale road network
- Ocean/coastline
- Forests and natural environments
Current work is focused heavily on completing the City and Residential Neighborhood, expanding AI throughout the world, improving environmental density, and turning the individual systems we’ve developed into an actual playable open-world experience.
There’s still a lot to build, but the difference between where Dawn Upon Us started and what it’s becoming is massive.
The 8 km × 8 km HDRP version is now the official foundation we’re moving forward with.
And this time, we’re building the game around the world we actually wanted from the beginning.