Maze Escape – The Scorch & AEGIS Update

A new world is strongly recommended. The maze dimension is now 256 blocks high and most of the new content only appears in newly generated chunks. On servers you can use /mazeescape regenerate to rebuild the maze dimension on the next restart (the Overworld, inventories and ender chests are not touched).

Early Access / Beta – Work in Progress Many structures (the AEGIS headquarters, bunkers, puzzle and parkour rooms, radio masts) are currently generated procedurally as placeholders and will be replaced with hand-built structures before the full release. Block textures, models and UIs are also still in progress and will get a proper visual pass.

The Scorch – the journey after the maze

Escaping the maze is no longer the end. Outside waits the Scorch: a scorching desert, ruined cities, mountains, three bunkers and the AEGIS complex.

Highlands

• New Highlands biome: mountain ranges rising high above the desert, with foothills, forests up to the tree line and snowy peaks.
• No heat and no sandstorms up here, but sheep, cows, pigs, chickens and goats.

Ruined cities

• City buildings are now furnished: offices, apartments, kitchens, infirmaries, stores, storage rooms and armories, each with fitting furniture.
• Far more chests and barrels, with seven new loot tables matching the room type.

Bunkers

• There are now three bunkers, spread around the maze.
• Every bunker room got a detail pass: pillars, pipes, vents, beams, trim and signs of decay.
• Defeating a bunker boss grants a numbered Access Core and drops a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template.
• Bunker 1 appears on your compass automatically. Bunkers 2 and 3 must be found: read AEGIS Datapads found in city chests and outposts to receive their compasses.

Outposts

• Fortified camps hidden deep in the Highlands: palisade wall, tents, a watchtower, a signal fire visible from far away, and a flag.
• Guarded by pillagers and a vindicator.
• Rations, an armory chest on the tower, and a map to a buried AEGIS depot.

Buried AEGIS depots

• Nine supply depots hidden underground in the desert, marked only by rusty iron rods.
• Every depot holds good gear and one Gate Key (1, 2 or 3).
• Find them with depot maps from outposts and datapads – once both bunker compasses are known, every datapad reveals a map to the nearest depot you don't know yet.

Radio masts

• Lattice radio masts with a rune stone stand at each bunker, at the complex gate and in front of the headquarters.
• Linking a mast adds it to your rune network: the waypoint menu gets a second page for the Scorch (right-click to switch). Travel between maze and desert and back to the Glade at any time.

Netherite

• Netherite can now only be found outside the maze: ancient debris deep in the Scorch near the lava layer, netherite scraps and smithing templates in depots and the complex.

The AEGIS Complex

The final destination: a walled city of the organisation behind the maze.

• A massive 90-block wall with buttresses and watchtowers. The main gate only opens with all three Access Cores and three Gate Keys.
• Slums outside the wall: shacks of rusty metal and wood, camps, ruins and a grand boulevard leading to the gate.
• A dark, neon-lit cyberpunk city inside: towers with lit windows and glowing signs, plazas with obelisks and reflecting pools, patrolled by AEGIS Guards.
• The AEGIS Headquarters: a tapering skyscraper far above the wall, crowned by a needle spire.
  • Climb it floor by floor: every floor is a complex of corridors, rooms, stairwells, an elevator core, spawner rooms and a vault.
  • Laboratories, containment and an archive/industrial section, each with its own rooms and enemies.
  • Three mini-bosses guard the bulkheads: The Preparator, Subject Zero and The Storm Drone. Each defeat opens a sealed boss vault.
  • Bulkheads also need the Access Card of their level – find it in the vault on the floors below.
  • At the top waits the AEGIS Core, a three-phase final boss.
  • Defeat it, step onto the landing platform and pull the lever to escape back to the Overworld.
• New advancements: Core Meltdown and Free at Last.

The Maze

• Timed walls now switch randomly every 4 minutes and act as real chokepoints.
• Rune network: right-click a rune to discover a sector and open a radial waypoint menu (Glade, Exit and all eight sectors). Rune stones now stand in every symbol court, at the exit and next to the north gate of the Glade.
• Box deliveries: every 3 maze days, empty containers in the arrival box are restocked with food, building materials, resources and plants.
• Vault compass: holding a sector key gives you a compass to the matching vault.
• Chests in plate, lever and button puzzle rooms stay locked until the puzzle is solved; vault chests until the vault is open.
• Symbol courts are sealed by a full blast door instead of a portcullis.
• Glade flowers: flower meadows now grow on the Glade.
• Crops and plants in the Glade keep growing while the Glade is unloaded.

Survival

• Heat protection: only the leather helmet protects against heat now, at 25 %. Decide between a cooler head or better armor and more water.
• Sandstorms now darken the sky and drive shader weather (fog, haze) with shader packs, without actual rain.
• Legendary Survival Overhaul (optional): when LSO is installed, it takes over heat and thirst.
  • Maze: neutral. Scorch: hot and dry. Highlands: cool, colder with altitude.
  • Sun ferns, ice ferns, golden ferns and water plants grow in the Scorch and Highlands.
  • LSO supplies (seeds, purified water, bandages, canteens, water purifiers, thermometers…) appear in the Glade deliveries, outposts and city chests.

Fixes

• Every mineable block in the maze (clay, soul sand, sand, gravel, ores…) now leaves a placeholder block until it regrows.
• Bunker walls no longer have gaps into the surrounding caves; stairwells are fully enclosed.
• City buildings have their floors again.
• Highland peaks are rounded instead of cut flat, and the snow line is no longer perfectly straight.
• Rune teleports no longer drop you inside blocks.
• Sector titles are no longer shown outside the maze.
• The Overworld elevator no longer cuts away the terrain above it and avoids water.
• The AEGIS complex no longer overlaps a bunker.
• Missing translations added.

New commands (operators)

• /mazeescape scorch outposts / depots – list outposts and depots
• /mazeescape scorch tp outpost <n> / tp depot <n> – teleport above them
• /mazeescape complex tp / tp hq – teleport to the gate or the headquarters
• /mazeescape complex open / open <1-3> – open the main gate or a headquarters bulkhead
• /mazeescape bunker tp <1-3> / open <1-3> – bunker shortcuts