Exploring the Depths in Subnautica

Sometimes you just have to look over your pile of shame and reflect on your choices.  I’ve purchased numerous games that I’ve thought sounded like something I’d be interested in only to find out that they’re an absolute miss.  For example, Civilization VI  is a very beloved title among some gamers, but I have found that I dislike 4X games.  They’re not bad–they’re just not my proverbial cup o’ tea.  Upon completing a re-play of DOOM (would recommend the demon smashing madness to any teachers trying to make it through the pre-holiday break weeks), I was browsing my library to find my next adventure.  I’ve been on a bit of a mission to re-play or just play titles from the pile of shame.  One title caught my eye–Subnautica.  I bought it back in 2016, played it for about 4 hours and then decided that it wasn’t for me.  I decided it was time to give it another go and actually found myself enjoying it (...and also not enjoying it at points).

What is it?

An open-world survival game based in a mostly underwater environment.  The basic premise of the story is that you’ve survived the crash landing of your ship and now have 1.) survive, 2.) find out if there are other survivors, and then 3.) discover the mysteries of the planet (not going to spoil it).

How much playtime can you expect?

This number could greatly vary.  If you’re invested in the more creative elements of the game (base building) you could invest many hours.  On the other hand, if you’re just wanting to stick to the main “story” elements you could probably finish it in ~15 hours.  As to replayability, once you’ve experienced the main story beats it kind of kills the replayability.

Pros:

+ The underwater setting helps provide some novel survival elements and unique exploration.  Besides keeping an eye on the normal food/water aspect you also have to make sure to watch the oxygen gauge.  The highlight of the game is definitely the variety of different underwater biomes–they vary from the giant coral tubes of the shallows to the deep volcanic zones of the endgame.  It’s highly enjoyable to find and experience a new biome.

+ Survival is the main focus, but there’s also several storylines to uncover.  You periodically receive distress calls and radio signals from other escape pods and can spend time locating them.  There’s also a hidden story tied to the planet itself that involves mysterious alien structures.

+ Exploration is the best part of the game.  There are new species of life to discover and scan in each new biome.  There’s also the promise of new, fancier minerals and other elements that can be used to craft increasingly more complicated items.  Many blueprints must be discovered, so it’s vital to find and scan wreckage scattered across the world.

+ Crafting and gathering isn’t too onerous and even endgame items generally don’t take a long time to create.  (*mostly).  There are several underwater craft that can be created as well as base building elements that offer up the ability to build an amazing underwater lair.  If building bases is your thing, there are no limits to the number of bases you can build.

+ Multiple game modes for different types of players.  If you just want to explore and build, there’s a creative mode that turns off the survival elements.  The default mode is survival mode where players must eat, drink, and try not to take too much damage.  If you do die, you’ll respawn at the closest base (or large craft, once you build it).  You lose some items, but they can be recovered (if you can find them).  Avoiding dying is fairly easy (although I will say that it’s easy to get distracted by exploration and lose track of your oxygen meter–especially early in the game when you only have a small tank) but you do take damage from certain aggressive creatures and environmental causes (like heat from volcanic vents).

Cons:

- No map.  Yes, it’s an exploration based game and the entire point is trying to find things scattered around the world.  However, I found the lack of map to be irritating.  I’m not saying that I want everything uncovered, but it would be nice to have a map that uncovers as you explore.  Especially as a new player, I didn’t understand that you basically need to be dropping beacons to mark anything you want to find again as your chances of finding something again are small (they’re cheap to craft, so it’s easy to do).  Just drop beacons anywhere you think you’re going to need to return to.  Even with dropping beacons I still had difficulties returning to some of the deeper zones in the late game.

Descriptions on where to find things are fairly vague–something like “1000m SW of this place”.  I found myself looking things up way more than I would’ve liked.  I’ve seen many comments from people saying “well, it’s an exploration game, what do you expect?”  Fair I guess, but I do not find it enjoyable to be fruitlessly searching for something for hours.

- Piloting the largest vessel is a chore.  Yes, it’s basically a floating base, but it’s slow, bulky, and difficult to navigate through some of the tighter areas.  I managed to get it stuck at several points and had to re-load.  You don’t absolutely need to use it, but without some of the key upgrades to the more agile vehicles it is a bit of a necessity at the deeper depths.

- Some players have described the game as “scary.”  I didn’t find it that way, but I suppose some of the sound effects from the aggressive creatures could freak some people out.  There are aggressive creatures that will attack you and your ship, they are threatening and it’s best to steer clear of them.

Recommendation:

Besides the annoyance at the lack of map and my own poor understanding of utilizing beacons, I ended up mostly enjoying Subnautica.  The exploration is enjoyable and there’s a lot of possibility for creativity in building up a mega-underwater base.  Don’t be surprised if you find yourself doing a bit of searching to discover elements of gameplay that aren’t well logged/explained.  I’m someone who tends to struggle with open-ended games that don’t have a clearly defined storyline, but found myself engrossed in exploration, building, and discovery.  Overall, Subnautica is worth your time and money despite a few shortcomings.