Agree completely... "X1: The Isle of Dread" was the gold standard for wilderness adventures for more than a decade. I'm playing 5E nowadays, but I still use the "hexcrawl" format for outdoor settings.
Yeah, the WotC-designed systems.
I ran the conversion of it that was provided in the D&D Next playtest. Having come from 3e and 4e, it was a huge departure from what I was used to from adventure modules. It was so strange to me running and adventure without any sort of plot, or even much of a hook really beyond “there’s weird stuff on this island, go check it out.” I was really nervous going into it, but it kinda ran itself? Definitely helped me develop my preference for emergent storytelling.
