Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 9, 2020 12:53:39 GMT -5
Modern video games look and sound much nicer than their ancestors, but unfortunately, this trend does not apply to the gameplay in most cases. As a result of games becoming cross-platform, and also, as PC gaming audience expanded from hardcore nerds and geeks to include pretty much everyone and their soccer mom, the financial incentive for game publishers and developers has been to dumb the gameplay down as much as possible to make sure that anyone can buy (and pay for) their games. And so games went from open-ended, player driven affairs to cinematic linear slogs, where you are constantly bombarded with too much exposition, too many instructions, and way, way too much hand holding. Go here, little boy, the games tell us now, suffer through this 3 hour long tutorial so we can forcibly train you like a dog, because you are too dumb to just organically pick these mechanics up while playing, like in the old games. Then, after the tutorial ends, go from point A to point B, as outlined on your quest compass, follow the cookie trail of map markers, and do exactly what the journal tells you to, broken down into tiny pieces of info even your lil head can handle.
Well, Subnautica is a game for those of us who miss the old type of gameplay. It is a beautifully designed survival game revolving around exploration, and accumulation of knowledge and tools. You are a nameless, voiceless protagonist, some sort of a space-traveler making a long journey in a cutting edge spaceship to a distant planet in some vague future. The spaceship is owned by a mega-corporation, and packed with futuristic technology to do some kind of an industrial mission on this relatively small, ocean covered world. But as the spaceship prepares to land, something goes wrong, and it crashes into the ocean, getting stuck on some reefs. You are jettisoned nearby, in a small lifepod, and after you manage to put the fire out inside of it, you are faced with a giant expanse of ocean on all sides, the nearby radioactive wreck of your ship, and no specific instructions on what to do.
That's right, no one drones at you, no one gives you a faux-dramatic speech about your goals, you are just some dude on a floating lifepod, and the soul crushing emptiness of the sea on all sides. You have realistic needs like hunger and thirst, which let you know about themselves rather quickly, and the game instantly forces you to think like a person would in a real life situation like that. How do you find something to eat, to drink? How do you fix up your little shelter? How do you obtain better tools and equipment, and more long term, how do you survive this terrible mishap, and get the hell off that planet alive? The absence of heavy-handed narrative and concrete instructions imbues Subnautica with an unmatched atmosphere and sense of player agency, two things sorely in demand.
Throughout the game, you will obtain clues on how to proceed not from NPC conversations or your quest-log, but from bits and pieces of information that you find as the result of your exploration. Old data tapes from previous people stranded on the planet, data analysis performed by your tools, occasional radio transmissions, etc. None of them tell you exactly what to do, the game is too subtle for that, but they provide enough information to advance your journey, IF you are paying attention.
Stuck on the lifepod atop an endless sea, you quickly realize that you have to go down underwater to get anything done, and are instantly greeted with gorgeous shallow reef waters, reminiscent of the Carribean. Filled with bright fish, colorful plants, sunlight filtering through the water, and small caves with important resources, these starting grounds represent the game's off-hand tutorial, as they are far more forgiving than the depths you will have to visit later on. But in their warm embrace, you quickly learn how to swim around, obtain sustenance, collect basic resources, and craft more advanced technologies. Then, over the course of the game, you head out to vast underwater caverns, explore deep ocean trenches, small islands, and alien structures. You will face monstrous behemoths and smaller sized wildlife, build your own bases and all sorts of underwater vehicles and tools, traverse vast distances, and slowly uncover the game's understated but quite interesting storyline.
One way in which Subnautica emphasizes exploration while at the same time keeping the tension up, is the lack of traditional weaponry. You have a knife, which you can use to kill small animals, but it won't work on anything larger, and there are some non-lethal weapons in the game, and eventually you will get something that can kill mid-sized stuff in a sort of a work-around, but generally speaking, the game is much more about just surviving and escaping, rather than killing, giving it a very different feel from most survival offerings out there.
The crafting in the game is really well done, with something like 200 crafting recipes available to you toward the end of the game. There is so much stuff that you can make, from underwater base parts to equipment to vehicles to furniture and vanity pieces. But the real star of the game is exploration. Everything else is tied to it. To get information to progress your storyline, you have to explore. To get new crafting recipes, you have to explore. To get resources for the crafting, you also need to explore. You get the idea. And the exploration mechanics are really well done. You can swim around, but that's a slow and dangerous way of getting around, although you can upgrade various equipment over time to improve your swimming speed, oxygen tanks, and a lot of other stuff. But eventually you will obtain small submersibles, mech-like robot suits, and entire mobile base submarines. Each of these come with their own advantages, disadvantages, and nuances. The submersible is very fast and maneuverable, but also quite fragile, and doesn't have much utility or storage space. The mech suit is much sturdier and defendable, and has various utility functions, but because it walks on the seafloor rather than swims, it presents a lot more navigational challenges. It's like the difference between flying a helicopter vs driving a car in unknown terrain, without a good map, the car is almost blind if there are any mountains/hills around it. The large submarine has a ton of storage, can dock smaller vehicles inside, and can have all sorts of useful stuff inside of it, but on the other hand, it is a pain to maneuver, especially in tight spaces.
There are also tons of other factors that impact exploration here. The depth (going below your current allowed depth crushes the vehicle), the lighting, the fauna (some is very aggressive), natural obstacles (heat/lava in some places, poisons in others), getting lost in dark caverns (there is some equipment to get around that), and many other things. You have to stock yourself up with food and water before going on long journeys, and have enough storage space to bring whatever you need back.
Graphics in this game are not cutting edge or anything. I think they might be using Unity or another engine like that, and the models and textures look more budget level than a cutting edge AAA game. But the art direction is very good, and many of the places you visit are really beautiful. I also enjoyed the music and sound effects quite a bit.
The only real negative I found in the game was that toward mid/late game, some of the stuff that you need to progress is extremely difficult to find without meta-information. I generally like to figure stuff out on my own, but I will admit that I had to look up online guides about 4-5 times in this game, and at least 2-3 of those, it was a really good thing that I did, because there was no way I am finding that on my own. However, that is a small minority of stuff, the vast majority can be organically found during the course of gameplay.
All in all, Subnautica took me around 70-80 hours to complete. The combination of its novel premise of underwater exploration and survival with the free-form approach that gives the player the maximum amount of player agency, as well as excellently designed mechanics in each area of the game have propelled it into my list of all time favorites, and a game that should not be missed by anyone who has any interest in survival, exploration, and the underwater setting.
Well, Subnautica is a game for those of us who miss the old type of gameplay. It is a beautifully designed survival game revolving around exploration, and accumulation of knowledge and tools. You are a nameless, voiceless protagonist, some sort of a space-traveler making a long journey in a cutting edge spaceship to a distant planet in some vague future. The spaceship is owned by a mega-corporation, and packed with futuristic technology to do some kind of an industrial mission on this relatively small, ocean covered world. But as the spaceship prepares to land, something goes wrong, and it crashes into the ocean, getting stuck on some reefs. You are jettisoned nearby, in a small lifepod, and after you manage to put the fire out inside of it, you are faced with a giant expanse of ocean on all sides, the nearby radioactive wreck of your ship, and no specific instructions on what to do.
That's right, no one drones at you, no one gives you a faux-dramatic speech about your goals, you are just some dude on a floating lifepod, and the soul crushing emptiness of the sea on all sides. You have realistic needs like hunger and thirst, which let you know about themselves rather quickly, and the game instantly forces you to think like a person would in a real life situation like that. How do you find something to eat, to drink? How do you fix up your little shelter? How do you obtain better tools and equipment, and more long term, how do you survive this terrible mishap, and get the hell off that planet alive? The absence of heavy-handed narrative and concrete instructions imbues Subnautica with an unmatched atmosphere and sense of player agency, two things sorely in demand.
Throughout the game, you will obtain clues on how to proceed not from NPC conversations or your quest-log, but from bits and pieces of information that you find as the result of your exploration. Old data tapes from previous people stranded on the planet, data analysis performed by your tools, occasional radio transmissions, etc. None of them tell you exactly what to do, the game is too subtle for that, but they provide enough information to advance your journey, IF you are paying attention.
Stuck on the lifepod atop an endless sea, you quickly realize that you have to go down underwater to get anything done, and are instantly greeted with gorgeous shallow reef waters, reminiscent of the Carribean. Filled with bright fish, colorful plants, sunlight filtering through the water, and small caves with important resources, these starting grounds represent the game's off-hand tutorial, as they are far more forgiving than the depths you will have to visit later on. But in their warm embrace, you quickly learn how to swim around, obtain sustenance, collect basic resources, and craft more advanced technologies. Then, over the course of the game, you head out to vast underwater caverns, explore deep ocean trenches, small islands, and alien structures. You will face monstrous behemoths and smaller sized wildlife, build your own bases and all sorts of underwater vehicles and tools, traverse vast distances, and slowly uncover the game's understated but quite interesting storyline.
One way in which Subnautica emphasizes exploration while at the same time keeping the tension up, is the lack of traditional weaponry. You have a knife, which you can use to kill small animals, but it won't work on anything larger, and there are some non-lethal weapons in the game, and eventually you will get something that can kill mid-sized stuff in a sort of a work-around, but generally speaking, the game is much more about just surviving and escaping, rather than killing, giving it a very different feel from most survival offerings out there.
The crafting in the game is really well done, with something like 200 crafting recipes available to you toward the end of the game. There is so much stuff that you can make, from underwater base parts to equipment to vehicles to furniture and vanity pieces. But the real star of the game is exploration. Everything else is tied to it. To get information to progress your storyline, you have to explore. To get new crafting recipes, you have to explore. To get resources for the crafting, you also need to explore. You get the idea. And the exploration mechanics are really well done. You can swim around, but that's a slow and dangerous way of getting around, although you can upgrade various equipment over time to improve your swimming speed, oxygen tanks, and a lot of other stuff. But eventually you will obtain small submersibles, mech-like robot suits, and entire mobile base submarines. Each of these come with their own advantages, disadvantages, and nuances. The submersible is very fast and maneuverable, but also quite fragile, and doesn't have much utility or storage space. The mech suit is much sturdier and defendable, and has various utility functions, but because it walks on the seafloor rather than swims, it presents a lot more navigational challenges. It's like the difference between flying a helicopter vs driving a car in unknown terrain, without a good map, the car is almost blind if there are any mountains/hills around it. The large submarine has a ton of storage, can dock smaller vehicles inside, and can have all sorts of useful stuff inside of it, but on the other hand, it is a pain to maneuver, especially in tight spaces.
There are also tons of other factors that impact exploration here. The depth (going below your current allowed depth crushes the vehicle), the lighting, the fauna (some is very aggressive), natural obstacles (heat/lava in some places, poisons in others), getting lost in dark caverns (there is some equipment to get around that), and many other things. You have to stock yourself up with food and water before going on long journeys, and have enough storage space to bring whatever you need back.
Graphics in this game are not cutting edge or anything. I think they might be using Unity or another engine like that, and the models and textures look more budget level than a cutting edge AAA game. But the art direction is very good, and many of the places you visit are really beautiful. I also enjoyed the music and sound effects quite a bit.
The only real negative I found in the game was that toward mid/late game, some of the stuff that you need to progress is extremely difficult to find without meta-information. I generally like to figure stuff out on my own, but I will admit that I had to look up online guides about 4-5 times in this game, and at least 2-3 of those, it was a really good thing that I did, because there was no way I am finding that on my own. However, that is a small minority of stuff, the vast majority can be organically found during the course of gameplay.
All in all, Subnautica took me around 70-80 hours to complete. The combination of its novel premise of underwater exploration and survival with the free-form approach that gives the player the maximum amount of player agency, as well as excellently designed mechanics in each area of the game have propelled it into my list of all time favorites, and a game that should not be missed by anyone who has any interest in survival, exploration, and the underwater setting.