Hello,

I just started to play AITD2 from GoG. I never really got into it back on the days (contrary to 1, that I loved, and 3, that I tolerate) so it's more or less completely new for me.

However, I noticed something that I'm not sure if it's normal just at the beginning, on the outside of Hell's Kitchen. I was sure that you are supposed to push the statue of the anchor and go into the laberynth.

But I found out that you can also just go to the main door (killing or avoiding the monsters), take the path left and go into the grey tile there. Carby will make a strange levitating animation, like if his neck gets brocken at the end. The screen will turn black, metallic noises sound, and you will suddenly appear in some underground cave where Striker lies dead.

Based on the inventory and the apparently random entrance to the room, I would say that we are not supposed to be there at that point. Still, taking into account how easy is to reach it, it could be seen also as something more or less normal.

Can someone confirm if I can start exploring that area without breaking the normal sequence?

I answer myself because I think there wasn't so much information about it.

The grey tile I mean wasn't in the original floppy disk version, that happened to have that infamous protection system that many casual players (as myself) couldn't get to work.

That shortcut was included purposely on the CD-ROM version (the only one offered in GoG as far as I know) to allow players to skip the whole maze section.

If it was an accident then that's a severe thing to miss for QA.

If it was on purpose then it was really poorly implemented and 99% of players who encounter it are only going to be confused.

The fact that he does an "heavenly ascension" animation for falling down something just makes it look like a glitch, and it doesn't help that the game will just plop duplicate items in your inventory too.

The skip itself doesn't even make sense from a design perspective. Are the devs implying that the Maze section is so bad that they needed to let the player skip it?
Bad idea all around.

I don't remember that thing but wouldn't you miss out on some items if you skip the maze?

This "secret" is mentioned here as well:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/3do/584306-alone-in-the-dark-2/cheats When Carnby falls into the underground passage, he automatically loses all his weapons (or his revolver if he hasn't picked up any other weapons earlier).

The only thing from the maze required to progress is the "page from a newspaper" item (which he can find at the end of the maze segment), but apparently the game just gives that item to Carnby even if the player skips the hedge maze with the above trick. The game probably just gives to Carnby everything he needs, when he enters the underground passage to ensure that the player won't get stuck. It also gives you the book that you can pick up during the maze segment, which describes one of the pirate crew (Shorty Leg, the ship's surgeon), but that is not required to finish the game. And I think it gives you the one half of Striker's torn notebook too, which is also not required to finish the game (edit: I can confirm it does give you the first half indeed).

There's at least one speedrun on Youtube that uses this skip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMhYFsF4F8s

Using this skip, you will miss any health flasks you can find in the maze section.

Wow! That's really interesting. Perhaps it was easier for the devs to implement this skip than lowering the difficulty ot the game overall. I mean, I am also one who was shocked at the amount of shooting in this game after having playing Alone1 and loved it.
I always thought Alone 2 would be so much better if there wasn't so much shooting.

By the way. A huge thank you for all the work you and the ScummVm team has done over the years. I use it all the time. Love it! :-)