Following the release of the supermarket and the gas station, we've put monument work on hold until we figure out how to make them more interesting for gameplay. As they are now, monuments serve little purpose beyond looting barrels and crates, and that's something that we would like to improve going forwards.
The procedural map and biomes were long overdue an overhaul, and I've decided to focus on improving them in the meantime. My goal is to make a series of natural monuments that would be randomly spawned during the map generation process. These will be handcrafted scenes that will be blended with current randomly generetated terrain, giving a nice mixture of random and bespoke areas. They should serve as landmarks, helping people find their way around the map, give a greater degree of visual variety and provide players with unique areas to build on. Most of these natural monuments will be biome specific, so you can expect that each biome will have a distinct look and feel and that building in certain areas will come with some pros and cons.
The first monument is a frozen lake and it will only spawn in the ice biome. It will have a few variants, to ensure that the same lake doesn't repeat itself. Going forward, you will see floating icesheets that will expand the playable area into the ocean, as well as new icebergs that will have multiple access points.
While the plans for other biomes are still up in the air, some of the areas you might see will include canyons, sand dunes and plateaus in the arid climate, as well as marshes and more natural rock formations in the temperate biome.