After years of development, the full version of Subnautica was finally released on Steam for PC Jan 23, 2018, and the countless hours the developers put into the game has produced a beautiful open world survival that immerses the player in a rich alien environment.
Subnautica has experienced a unique development process as the early access was released on PC in 2014, and the game has since slowly matured one update at a time to what it is now. I first became interested in the game a year ago after seeing some gameplay on YouTube, but I have never been a fan of playing games until they are complete.
Waiting on the games full release was undoubtedly worth it. It seems strange to describe a world that is 95% ocean as detailed, and yet it truly is with a wide variety of alien creatures, plants, and terrain. The game’s world is expansive enough that journeying across the map to complete an objective feels like a challenging ordeal, and the map becomes even bigger when you realize how many different layers there are to the underwater world.
One of the most challenging and yet entertaining parts of the game is the fact that the player has no distinct weaponry to protect himself with. Later in the game, there are torpedoes that can be equipped in vehicles, but even these are non-lethal. Instead, the player needs to run away or sneak around the world’s predators to get where he or she needs to go.
Exploration is a vital part of the game, and it is necessary to progress through the game. However, with a limited air supply and the various dangers posed by the alien fauna and flora, the player must stay ever-vigilant to avoid dying. The moment I thought I knew what I was doing and felt safe, a new danger would appear and almost put an end to my character.
Like many survival games, upgrading equipment is critical, and this cannot be done without exploring to find new schematics and resources. There are also three different vehicles that the player can build, and they help tremendously with traveling and air supply. The Cyclops, which is the largest sub in the game, is a very impressive vehicle with multiple rooms, a camera system, and even a garage for smaller vehicles. Players can even customize their sub with furniture, gardens, and much more.
Another feature of the game is the ability to build bases almost anywhere in the world. Players can enjoy adding their own personal touch to their underwater bases with an array of structures, furniture, and decorations. One room that gives testament to the programming put into the game is the scanner room. This room, once built by the player, produces a 3D hologram map of the surrounding area and pinpoints resources and items that the player needs to find, and this is especially convenient to the player who is too lazy to spend time exploring.
The game, when played in survivor mode, has a fairly well written story for the player to follow. While there are not any dramatic cutscenes, the player slowly learns more about the secrets of the alien world by recovering lost documents and audio recordings. There is also some subtle humor to be found in the dialogue of the AI who assists the player with mostly obvious advice.
The most frustrating part of the game for me personally is the lack of clear-cut objectives. Perhaps other gamers prefer the more open games such as Minecraft, but for me, I always want to know the next step to completing the game, and in Subnautica, the next objective to progress in the story is not always apparent. Fortunately, if you are like me, there are plenty of YouTube videos and forums that will help guide you through the game.
As far as bugs go, I have managed to get my avatar stuck while walking a few times, but I have been able to get free every time after a minute or so of spamming the controls. Another thing that bothers me is how close your avatar must be to objects before he can collect them. This opinion might be based off other survival games I’ve played, but when your avatar is almost out of air or being pursued by some marine predator, it can be frustrating how close you need to get to items to pick them up.
Subnautica is without doubt an enjoyable game that is more than worth its low price to play. While the full version is not quite ready for Xbox, developers promise that the latest update to the game’s preview version has everything that the Steam full version has. While it can be frustrating to not have a full version of a game, it is refreshing to see game developers building games in a different way and to watch their persistent efforts at improving and constantly adding to an already impressive game.
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