The Arizona town of Star Lights as the designer’s points-of-interest texts describe it, and the places each Gear passes through.
Star Lights, Arizona: the points of interest
The second document, WildHorsePOIs.docx, is headed ARIZONA and lists ten places with a spoken line each. All ten are given in full below, exactly as written. The speaker is never named. The lines read as one narrator’s: the car shop is “where I work”, the home line is about “the American dream” and a house bought eight years ago, and the college line is about “my mom”. That matches Ralph (the script has him as a mechanic who lives in a house of his own, see Ralph), but the document does not say so. “Star Lights” is not mentioned anywhere in the screenplay.
The designer’s sketch map of the Arizona hub (picture Arizonamap.png). The ten places of the tour are the streets of Star Lights at the top.
Source: WildHorsePOIs.docx, bullet list under the centered red heading ARIZONA.
ARIZONA
College: "My mom wanted me to go to college, said that without a degree, I’d be a nobody… I said I’d be fine with that, because I liked my job. I like my job so much I’m still working the same job to this day, not only it pays well, but I actually enjoy it. Haven't talked to her in a while. Oh well, maybe I'll give her a call."
Park and plaza: “Star Lights may be a small place, but it’s still a nice one for you to walk around with your girl. I bet she won’t mind sitting down while talking about her dreams.”
Mall: “This place really makes Star Lights feel like a bigger town than it actually is, with stores of all types and even a theater. I mean, it helps preventing our town from being too overcrowded.”
Church: “Every Sunday, the bell rings and everyone says their prayers. This is a sacred place, not just for obvious reasons, but also because this is one of the oldest buildings in town, built because settlers wanted to be properly grateful to the Lord for the safety of this town, the friendships made, the resources considered as divine gifts and for always guiding them here.”
City Hall: “Everyone around the world hates politicians, right? Well, not here. Our mayor is friends with everyone and even stood up for us in small international misunderstandings involving our citizens. Mr. Colton Baltimore is an honorable leader and is too great for our country’s system.”
Saloon: “Oh boy, the amount of history our saloon carries. There’s been more gunfights here than memory serves, and some American legends have been here too, some named, some nameless. For at least 60 years now though, the place calmed down, folks settle their differences with a drink or a game of cards.”
Car shop: “This is where I work. Ain’t this place sweet? The cars I touched here and made their owners happy… I just hope all of them are alright. Some racing legends have been here before, one of them telling me to take care of my family… He was definitely onto something.”
Fast food: “Ah, Bucky’s… There’s one everywhere in America, so Star Lights couldn’t be an exception. Not gonna lie though, I love their fries, but their burgers are not bad, especially when you don’t have the time to eat a full meal.”
South Star Inn: “Initially, the saloon had places for people to stay, but the number of tourists grew too big for them to handle and some people couldn’t sleep when the airport was still working, so some of the owners built this place where’s quieter and more peaceful. The place remained successful after the airport shut down.”
Home: “Home sweet home… Boy am I glad to be able to say this. It truly is the American dream for most of us to be able to buy a house, have a steady income and a family, and I achieved all that with hard work. Not the bullshit fed to young men by those lizards, no, actual dedicated work that doesn’t kill me just to be ablet to afford only half of what I need. I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 18 and tried to find my place in the world, and I found home here in Star Lights. I liked it here so much I made it my goal to buy a house here, and now I did. It’s been 8 years, boy did time fly by.”
Things these texts add to the setting: the town has a mall with a theater, a church that is one of the oldest buildings, a mayor named Colton Baltimore, a saloon with many gunfights in its past (calmer for 60 years), a fast-food chain called Bucky’s, an inn built because the saloon’s rooms were too noisy while the airport worked (the airport shut down), a car shop, and Ralph’s home bought eight years ago. The Home line mentions “those lizards” who feed young men a “bullshit” promise; compare the reptilian theme in the content note.
A main road in the Arizona desert (scene) → Charlie’s junkyard (scene) → the open desert (scene) → cliffs and the crevices of the Grand Canyon (scene, scene) → a big open area where the Angel waits (scene) → a clinic (scene) → Ralph’s house.
Ralph’s house, a mobile home in a small neighborhood in the desert (scene) → the highway, six hours (scene) → Area 51, surface base and underground hangar with spaceships (scene, scene) → space: Earth, the Moon, Mars, eight hours of flight (scene) → the surface of Jupiter (scene) → Europa: an ice desert with a river, breathable air at 10 degrees Celsius and a base about 3 km away that looks like an oil refinery (scene, scene).
Space: the Federation’s arrester ship, almost the size of Manhattan, with a hangar and a jail cell (scene) → the court colony, a spinning top with a courtroom full of many alien races and a plaza/garden in front (scene, scene) → the pirates’ colony, a broken, multicolored Death-Star-like structure with turrets, and inside it a neon town with only elevators and an arena in the center (scene, scene, scene) → the Federation headquarters, “the Galactic Federation court” (scene) → Ralph’s house at night (scene).
Ralph’s garage and kitchen (scene, scene) → the road to South America, a desert restaurant and a coast road (scene, scene) → the Amazon, at the end of the road (scene) → the hidden entrance and the underground waterway with Mesoamerican art (scene) → the sealed gate (scene) → Eldorado on the ground (scene, scene) → the tallest pyramid and its arena (scene) → the sky city above the clouds (scene, scene) → the top of the tower (scene) → Amazon off-road and a cheap restaurant in Bogotá (scene, scene) → the road back through Colombia and Central America to Arizona (scene).
Ralph’s house (scene) → American roads and a hotel on the way to Yellowstone (scene) → the Yellowstone crater, the Grand Prismatic Spring (scene) → the portal at the bottom, a wormhole in volcano colors (scene) → the underworld, a world with a green and yellow sky, dinosaurs and kaiju (scene, scene) → the girl’s village (scene). The script ends there.
Hub maps and the home
The designer’s notes outside the screenplay speak of five hub worlds (Arizona, Europa, a space colony, Eldorado, the underworld). The screenplay itself has, besides these places, the home hub: from Gear 4 on the player can talk to the housemates, choose side missions or start the main mission (scene); Gear 5 does the same (scene). The three side missions named are Antarctica, Chernobyl and Atlantis; their content is not written.
