SureAI

I just finished the game and one of the areas that impressed me the most as the Undercity. Its dark and dirty atmosphere caused me to avoid the place whenever I could. Whenever I walked there, I always felt I ended up lost in one of those neighborhoods everyone is telling you to avoid at all costs. I think it is really an impressive feat of the creators to make me feel like that about a virtual place.

But what is exactly the lore behind that place? From what I picked up in game, the place more or less served as a garbage can to throw in everyone who did not fit inside Enderal's carefully created Utopia. The so called Pathless Ones.
And are there also ingame lorebooks about the Undercity which I could read?

I think the dismal music in the undercity also contributes to the gloom & doom feeling. In a way it makes me realize how fortunate I am to not have to live in such a place in the real world, as there are millions of people living in such hopeless places (although not underground) in cities around the world.

What I could add about the undercity? Check the bards' "Song of the Vatyrs".

The Rhalâta cult were supposed to be the ruler, but they have never been. It's always been the Holy Order. The apothecarii in the undercity works under the Order. And what's most devastating fact is the Order has built a tunnel to release poison gas from the temple to the undercity in case they revolt.

I am strongly impressed by the unfinished locations of the deeper dungeons, the corpse pit, crypts, the orphanage, the glimmerdust lane, spider princess' lair. The quests and things related to the lore had to be cut out of the project. I strongly believe there are stories written about the vatyrs in the orphange, the spider queen, the Darkhand family (which are lost ones that use magic with Dragon Priest animation), the drugs and supposedly street fighting. There must be a lot of story behind this.

One of the two unfinished questlines, that SureAI was cautiously optimistic to implement at a later date, deals with the Rhalata. Very likely we will get more content regarding the Undercity with this questline, whenever that might be. Some people have even found some sort of Rhalata temple down there. I haven't seen it yet, but I guess it is only accesible with cheats at the moment.

I found a temple that was filled with spiders and lost ones.

I think what you meant is Old Aisolon, the dungeon with the spider queen? I was refering to this post here, which points to another part of the Undercity. I don't think Old Aisolon is connected to the Rhalata, but who knows.

Oh Yeahhh that area in the arena that I first visited the very first time in the Undercity before I actually know anything about the lore! Thanks for pointing that out, I'll revisit the area.

I just had look at some older footage of the undercity and it makes me a bit sad that you had to abandon a lot of your inital vision for this place. Don't get me wrong - I still think the undercity turned out very well and atmospheric, but without a real main cavern everything feels a bit too narrow and there are so many loading screens. This is even more unsatisfying as you get this very impressive view of the main cavern when you enter the undercity for the first time, but then there is just no such place that resembles this view and you find yourself immediately trapped in narrow tunnels.

Take a look at this screen and this video for a glimbse at old main cavern design (video 3:23)

Is it confirmed that further updates will not put these unfinished Undercity quests to life?

My thoughts about small and crammed tunnels: I'd say it's more realistic for it to be small tunnels instead of having the main cavern connecting to almost all locations. But still, the multiple loading screens annoy me.