The Red Ant Queen is a unique creature found in the depths of the Red Anthill. Rather than being a traditional creature, she is more of an interactable event, with being able to be fed either a Juicy Mushroom Sandwich, Poison Mushroom Sandwich, or Infected Mushroom Sandwich to cause various effects that are permanent and cannot be reverted.
She is one of 3 ant queens, the others being the Black Ant Queen and the Fire Ant Queen.
Offerings[]
The player has the options to feed the Red Ant Queen 3 variants of Mushroom Sandwich, being Juicy, Poisoned, and Infected. All have different effects and once one is fed, it cannot be reverted and another variant cannot be used. The player can use the other variants if they go into New Game+. The choices include the following:
Juicy[]
Feeding the Red Ant Queen the Juicy Mushroom Sandwich will make her happy, with her doing a small dance in response. The player will be instantly granted a Baby Red Ant pet, the pets gold card, and receiving progress for the Antbassador mutation. With the Antbassador mutation equipped, Red Soldier Ants will temporarily become neutral to the player. The player will also be able to loot the surrounding Ant Friend Offerings. These offerings will give Red Ant Eggs and Red Ant Queen Pheromones.
Choosing this path limits the amount of items the player can craft, being unable to make the Red Strategist Armor, Red Ant Queen Mount, and Stuffed Red Ant Queen. The area behind the Red Ant Queen will also remain sealed.
However, if you choose this path and your baby ant dies, you may return to the ant queen and get a new one without feeding her again or going into a new NG+, just return and interact with her and a new ant is yours.
Poisoned[]
Feeding the Red Ant Queen the Poison Mushroom Sandwich will kill the Red Ant Queen and the player will be able to loot her corpse. The Ant Friend Offerings surrounding her will also disappear. With the additional loot given, the player can make the Red Strategist Armor, Red Ant Queen Mount, and Stuffed Red Ant Queen, including items the player could previously make with the Juicy route. Along with this, the cave behind her will open, revealing a small cave full of Brittle Quartzite Shards, various chest in New Game+, and an exit that leads out of the anthill. Doing this will also cause all Red Worker Ants to become aggressive on sight to the player permanently.
Infected[]
Feeding the Red Ant Queen the Infected Mushroom Sandwich will initially appear to be an identical result to the Poisoned Mushroom Sandwich, with it having the same events. However, a small notice will appear on the side saying "You sense a ripple in an alternate dimension". Upon entering New Game+, the Red Ant Queen will be converted into an Infected Ant Queen. Along with this, some of the Red Ant Soldiers and Red Ant Workers will be replaced with Infected Soldier Ants and Infected Ants, causing fights within the anthill.
It will revert to a normal Red Ant Queen in the next New Game+.
Trivia[]
- The Red Ant Queen uses the original model and multiple animations intended for use with a planned Ant Queen boss that would have been found in the Fire Anthill. This boss was seen in the files of the game for most of its development under the codename "Antrim".
- It also appears the choice to scrap the boss was made very late in development of 1.4, as multiple remnants of it exist still in the games code, including a spawnable, though heavily unfinished, attackable version that would attack back.
- The files for the Ant Queens still use the codename "Antrim" in the game code. The codename is a trend with all of the bosses developed by company Black Shamrock, with the Wasp Queen being "Wicklow" and the cut Lizard boss being "Limerick".
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