Subnautica

Subnautica is one of the better survival games out there. The ocean feels alive and the exploration presents an awesome loop that perfectly balances fear of the unknown, a wish to explore further, and the need to accumulate gameplay resources. However, I do feel the game falls flat in the late-game, the plot is unnecessary at best and intrusive at the worst, and, this is a me-only problem, the audio is stereo. Give me surround-sound audio or give me a reaper leviathan right outside my seamoth!

not for me

Each time I came back to the surface, I always found myself a little less afraid of the depths. A bit rough around the edges but still a very pleasant adventure with occasional intense moments.

it doesn't really deviate from the explore, collect and improve-formula other genre entries offer, but there's yet something special about it. is it the colourful, beautiful, immersive underwater world? is it the awesome sound-design? is it the array of pretty cool tools and gadgets? or the way you're introduced into the world by just the right balance of freedom and plot? ok, yes, that's it. all of it. it's great.

in its genre unique, it set a new milestone of immersion

The buggiest game I've ever loved after early access and years of patches, even now.There are a bunch of issues to bitch about, like the UI, or the game's weird habit of randomly ignoring your inputs, the clunky movement system, the nearly unusable data bank systems. All of that is forgivable because the exploration and sense of immersion are so strong.

The only survival game thus far to grab my attention for a solid 15 or so hours, but unfortunately it didn't last for much longer after that. Don't dig the style and the interface feels almost like it's ripped out of a children's educational game. It's terribly optimised as well.

Very fun, but the endgame got slightly tedious - the travel times were just a bit too much, and the resource gathering is inherently repetitive. I would also have liked the ability to make my own map in the game.

At first I thought it was a common survival game with differential happening on the ocean floor. I was surprised. The graphics are elegant. The mechanics of vehicles in water is pure sci-fi. Developers opted to not display a map or gps, this made exploration difficult and exciting. But there are flaws. The Cyclop submarine is very giant and has poor energy efficiency, which makes it an uninteresting experience. Hunger and constant thirst is very annoying, and they turn you off from the narrative

Lots of crafting, amazing graphics and a pretty big ocean to explore. The survival element is easily manageable once you know how everything works. Replayability may be an issue for some because it's a fixed world with the items you need to progress being essentially in the same spots from game to game. However if like me you have a rotten memory and a terrible sense of direction replayability is much less of an issue! Cool story too.

It's a gorgeous game, also speaks to the fear of the unknown, specifically the ocean which is terrifying... even though this isn't technically a horror game. I'm not much for survival generally because having to eat every 5 minutes ruins a game for me, but this is fairly forgiving, and there are different modes (one in which you don't have to worry about that). Big open-world to explore, lots of intrigue, pretty cool story.