![]() This means you’ll have to rely on rote memorization in getting around. For instance, you can craft a compass to give you direction, and you’ll always now your depth underwater in meters. I did find myself getting lost in some areas of the game, but the game does a pretty good job at providing the tools and means so you don’t. The act of swimming is great in Subnautica, with six degrees of freedom, the animation and corresponding movement speed feels natural. There is combat to Subnautica, but beyond using your knife to defend yourself, is minimal but done in a way where you feel vulnerable to each attack and never truly feel safe when underwater. Perhaps the most standout one is the fish who will try to mesmerize you, literally limiting the controls to 1/4 of their movement speed in an attempt to try to suffocate yourself. You’ll quickly learn what’s passive and aggressive. Most of the aquatic life is bio-luminescent. You see creatures unlike anything you’ve seen before. Sound becomes muffled and you begin losing air. The sun pokes through the waves and shines in godrays into the depths below. ![]() The active and passive storytelling keeps you invested and eager to learn more.įrom the moment you first dive in the water, you are in awe of the spectacle of the water before you. There are secrets, questions, and mysteries that not only surround your inexplicable crash landing but for the planet itself. Exploration is encouraged, but you won’t feel the need to go too far until you’ve adequately prepared for the journey. All of this works hand-in-hand so that when you’re ready to take on the next task or discover the next thing, you aren’t overwhelmed. It is triggered through discovery, time passed, and actions the player takes during the course of the game. While Subnautica is focused on delivering a story, it does so at a pace that feels natural and organic. The voice acting here is really top-notch and worth listening to each and every one you come across. These range from disturbing messages left hours ago in people’s desperate attempts to get help or some hilarity found in some others. While you can’t call out, once you repair communications, you will definitely receive messages. ![]() Known only as Planet 4546B, this planet is seemingly mostly made up of water, and the crew of the Aurora has been scattered and all outgoing communication to Alterra Headquarters is not operable. Upon exiting your pod for the first time, you see the hulking starship has crash landed into the ocean nearby. After being unconscious for three hours, you awaken to a burning lifepod and work to retain stability before anything more tragic happens. The story kicks off with you entering a lifepod aboard a crashing starship called the Aurora. It is an open-sea exploration, and the survival and crafting elements support the core gameplay make this incredibly immersive. This is a single-player game without any co-op or multiplayer. It seemed it was just a very pretty wrapper on the same old gameplay with a thinly veiled story to keep things interesting. ![]() Well, appearances can be deceiving, as I bought Subnautica in December 2016 when it was still in Early Access with this very thought. You might think that Subnautica is a survival and crafting game in the vein of Minecraft, where it is up to the player to make their own fun. Missing out on this story is doing yourself a disservice as the story is crucial to enjoying the Subnautica experience. I would not recommend first-time players start the game in Creative, it seems to be meant for those who’ve already completed the story. ![]() Those looking for something more demanding and harrowing will find it in Survival and Hardcore modes, but given how central the story is to the game, adding any more layers of survival was too distracting. Freedom was the mode that I stuck with, and felt it strike a nice balance. When you begin a new game, you’ll be asked to pick one of four modes: Survival will have you managing health, oxygen, hunger, and thirst Freedom only concerns you with managing health and oxygen Hardcore requires you to manage all elements of survival and with only one life and Creative which lets you build without constraints, but disables death and story. And with it being so well designed, thought-out, and presented, Subnautica should be the basis for which games of this kind should look to, for years to come. Unknown Worlds have spent the past several years shaping what is undoubtedly the best survival game ever made. Subnautica is a gem, and one that we must treasure. The best kind of survival games, don’t happen often. The best kind of survival games are ones where you forget you’ve been playing one, where every task doesn’t feel like a chore, where you never feel like you can keep yourself away. ![]()
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