: I thought the pfhor textures and the jjarro set were the only texture changes
: in infinity. Are there more subtle changes in the lh'owon sets?
I wouldn’t call them subtle, exactly. They’re all completely remade; most of them share elements with their M2 counterparts, but the aesthetic is completely different. In general, M2 is more colourful but also more… cartoony, for lack of a better term. Also, M2 sewage is predominantly brown while M∞ is predominantly green, and M∞ Pfhor is predominantly a desaturated blue while M2 is predominantly... the entire visual spectrum, basically.
See my link below for a complete set of textures in both games. (You may need to expand it to get the full effect, depending on your browser settings.) In order, the rows are: M2 water, M∞ water, M2 lava, M∞ lava, M2 sewage, M∞ sewage, M∞ Jjaro, M2 Pfhor, M∞ Pfhor. Jjaro is included to show that many (though not all) of its textures fulfil the same functions as their corresponding sewage textures.
A couple of other notes: The textures are a large part of the reason Infinity took place on Lh’owon, and thus a large part of the reason for the time travel and multiple timelines; Double Aught didn’t think they’d have time to remake all four texture sets, and it would’ve been ridiculous to set the sequel on a planet that looked exactly like Lh’owon, but wasn’t. Randy remade all the textures near the end of Infinity’s development cycle. This is also why most of the terminal images in Infinity show the maps with Marathon 2 textures.
Since the new textures were a last-minute addition, they also had to fulfil the same purposes as their Marathon 2 counterparts – it wouldn’t have been productive to retexture dozens of levels that late in development. However, the aesthetic of the game changed a lot. I personally am glad each game has its own textures; M∞ looks off to me with M2 textures, and vice versa.
The landscapes (apart from the moon collection, which is not used in M∞) are also different; I didn’t include those here, but may do so as an addendum to this post later.
