Unused Maps

This is a sub-page of Pokémon Red and Blue.

There exist a total of 22 deleted map locations, including one which may represent a cut town. Each location has music values and pointers to header data for existing maps; however, these pointers look for header data in incorrect banks. Moreover, several of these maps attempt to use headers for what is now Lance's Elite Four arena, which may indicate that headers and map data were shuffled around during development.

Trying to access these areas causes the game to freeze, likely due to the fact that they lack data and attempt to read headers from the wrong banks.

Scrapped Town#

This map uses the header for Saffron City, but tries to load from bank 01, which lacks headers entirely. It is located at the very end of the map list, which ranges from 00 to 0A, and just before the route maps, which go from 0C to xx. An unused flag exists that, when checked, would have allowed the player to Fly to it. Finally, no wild Pokémon are defined for the area. This evidence suggests that the map was originally a town or city. Its Town Map coordinates and location name are undefined. This causes the game to default to coordinates (0,0) and location name 00. Thus, when viewed on the Town Map, it erroneously appears to be located north of Indigo Plateau, and uses the name Pallet Town.

Conceptual documents reveal that an overworld location, which appears to be a city, was cut early in development, which is likely what this header is linked to. This is supported by leaked internal material revealing the existence of a cut 12th town (the Indigo Plateau is internally referred to as a town).

Lance's Room#

These maps use the header for Lance's room (map 6C), but load from the bank used by the other Elite Four rooms, 1D, rather than the one normally used for Lance's room, 16. All these maps link to the original incarnation of the Pokémon League, where it consisted of a series of rooms based on previous dungeons the player went through.

Rocket HQ Elevator#

While the following maps use the header for the elevator at Rocket HQ, they try to load from bank 01, which lacks map headers entirely. The maps assigned to these ID spots were later found in leaked internal material.

Route 16 Gatehouse#

This map uses the header for the gatehouse at Route 16, but tries to load from bank 01, which lacks map headers entirely. The existence of a second Route 16 Gate map may suggest that earlier in development, two individual gate buildings were used, instead of the unique two-in-one design the final games use. According to the source code this ID was linked to the Cerulean Cave section.

Silph Co. 2F#

These maps use the header for the second floor of Silph Co., but try to load from bank 11, rather than the normal header at 16. All these maps link to the scrapped Silph Co. gauntlet, where the player would have fought a series a trainers as they ascend up the building.

Duplicate Maps#

Curiously, there exist several unused maps which are duplicates of areas that already exist within the game. They differ in that the music assigned to them differ when compared to their used counterparts. They can be accessed by replacing xx with their ID number in the map location modifier code 01xx5ED3. Moreover, when using the "dokokashira door glitch" and taking 72 steps before entering the rival's house, the player will be teleported near Rock Tunnel. Entering it will take them to the alternate Route 6 entrance.

In addition to having different music, the alternate version of Route 7's Underground Tunnel entrance different NPC data, and unused text that goes along with it. There is also an unused duplicate of Diglett's Cave. It can be found at offset 0x60258 in the English version of Pokémon Red, and at 0x61F86 in the English version of Blue.