It’s been a long time since we posted any actual news of the progress of 2.1 onto the main page, so here’s a bunch of screenshots of updated stages for your viewing pleasure and speculation. As a reminder to everyone, all the content posted here is of a work in progress, and could see massive changes before actual release. Click on the pictures for full, enormous 1920×1200 detail.

	A new alcove in GFZ1 demonstrating the Whirlwind Shield with a trail of rings. GFZ1 has had a few minor modifications to help improve how well it teaches players our gameplay mechanics.
	The underground tunnel in THZ1 has been dramatically redesigned to not involve jumping on small barrels over slime. THZ1 in general has had small modifications to get rid of annoying and tedious sections of the stage.
	A view of the exit of the new Knuckles path and the designed look of the outdoor areas of THZ1.
	A part of the Knuckles path itself. Knuckles is forced onto this path where the long, empty hallway used to be. Hopefully several other stages in 2.1 will manage to get their own Knuckles areas.
	THZ2’s difficulty has been eased up a bit in a few areas. In this shot we have an alternate path in the turret room, which also doubles as a way out of the slime should the player fall going the other way.
	Another difficulty nerf, this time to THZ3. There are now walls to protect the player from rebounding off of the train car into the pit. The first bottomless pit in the game is now in DSZ2.
	Deep Sea Zone was made slightly easier in general, with floors where pits used to be and extra air bubbles in places. The water at the start of Act 1 now rises slower, and only reaches up to this height.
	Should you fall in the platforming section after the underwater waterslide, there is now a way out of the water without going through the incredibly long zoom tube and doing the entire waterslide over again. Many other quality of life issues along these lines have been fixed in general.
	A few of the more boring visual areas have been spruced up a tad. DSZ3 is probably the most dramatic.
	CEZ1 has been pretty dramatically changed to be a lot more consistent in theme and gameplay. There are no longer waterslides here; falling will now lead to a secondary path.
	Another room from the previous version retouched. The texturing in CEZ1 varies a lot now, putting some of the Lime Forest textures into the single player game.
	A part of the new, unfinished Knuckles pathway. As with THZ1, Knuckles has no choice but to use it, but unlike THZ1, Tails can select this route as well.
	The new CEZ2 is slightly harder than the older version, as easily shown here in the dungeon, with a bottomless pit replacing a floor with a few spikes.
	One of the new outdoor rooms, showing the new textures and the entrance to the library.
	CEZ2 contains a significant amount of completely new content. Here is one of the rooms in the library. Plenty of other new areas are here to explore along with the revamped older content.

Finally, as a reminder, many pieces of information on upcoming content for SRB2 can be found on the Wiki’s In Development page, which is a rather well compiled list of things we’ve said on IRC and the forums about our progress. Of course, just because we planned to do it in the past when we made those statements doesn’t mean we’re actually going to go through with it, so take everything you see there with a grain of salt.