The Archivist: “When you’re designing
a speculative creature, where do you like to start?” Alex Ries: “I’ll tend to gather, maybe
10 or 20 references that are in the theme of the direction I’m going. Reference images of fossil life, reconstructions,
living things, even down to fungi and microscopic creatures. And then I bring that up in photoshop and
start sketching — referencing that.” That’s Alex Ries, a creature designer for
Subnautica: Below Zero, and one of the most talented speculative biology artists out there. Many of the creatures that swim in the seas
of Planet 4546 B started off as his idea, going through multiple iterations of concept
art to arrive at the awe-inspiring final designs we see in game. Yet there’s a lot of incredible art of unique
speculative lifeforms that — for one reason or another — never made it into the final
product. Not implementing all designs from early development
stages is a normal part of pre-production, but some of these designs are so well thought-out,
they deserve to be studied further. So, for this entry into the archive, we’ll
explore the incredible unseen creatures of Subnautica, exploring their potential biology
and how they might fit into the existing environments of Planet 4546B. And if you like the art showcased in this
video, you can support Alex Ries on Patreon using the links below. Now, let’s return to the water of Planet
4546B, and explore the speculative lifeforms that could have been… Beginning in the vast, open regions of Planet
4546B’s ocean, some very unique leviathans almost swam. These enormous, curiously shaped creatures
are called Thalassaceans — and are imagined to fill the niche of a peaceful filter feeder,
straining small food particles from the water using specialized mouths. Their fin structure gives them a distinctive
profile, and Alex Ries says the creature uses its rear fins to swim in a manner similar
to the oceanic sunfish of Earth. Ries created a lot of different color variants
exploring the options for pigment and skin texture for these lifeforms, and I have to
say, some of them are really striking. Like most of the lifeforms on this list, it’s
hard not to wish we could interact with them in game. Other potential organisms are more deadly. One lifeform that would work beneath sandy
environments is the Sand Spear. This terrifying creature is an ambush predator
that buries itself in sediment and waits for the unwary to swim overhead before striking. In behavior and appearance, the Sand Spear
somewhat resembles Earth’s Bobbit Worm: an alarming-looking predator that also ambushes
its prey. The Sand Spear’s name and overall lifestyle
also recalls the Sand Shark from the tropics, another species that buries itself beneath
the sea floor only to emerge in spectacular fashion to snag its lunch. And like the Sand Shark, the Sand Spear attacks
at high speed, with a spikey maw extending out to snap up its prey. In addition to this veritable forest of teeth,
the head of the Sand Spear features two tentacles that help them sense their targets while buried. These feelers are similar to the navigational
appendages on the front of certain genuses of marine slugs. All in all, while sand spears would have been
an exciting inclusion, they’d make swimming near the sea floor much more stressful… Upon the ice floats, we almost got a very
unusual type of symbiotic organism. The Gardener Eel is a bizarre creature that
stores a small, tree-like plant in its gullet. While on the surface, it extrudes the plant
into the waiting sun for photosynthesis. This type of symbiotic relationship between
a plant and animal does appear in the natural world, and can be seen in the Earth ‘Leaf
Sheep’ — a fascinating type of sea slug I’ve mentioned before in other entries. Leaf Sheep can use the green algae on their
backs to perform photosynthesis and produce simple sugars for food. The Gardener Eel doesn’t spend all day in
the sun, however, and can ‘swallow’ the membrane and swim like a more traditional
eel when in danger. A really inventive lifeform. Just under the ice of Sector Zero, a combative
predator could have been prowling. This pugnacious creature is a Bulldog Trapjaw,
a mid-sized creature that doesn’t look particularly threatening while in a neutral position. Swim too close, however, and the Trapjaw lives
up to its name by lashing out with a pair of long, raptorial jaws. These extendible mandibles have multiple functions
— useful both as an offensive tool and a grasping mechanism to pull prey into their
throat. The various species of moray eels in Earth
oceans have a convergent adaptation. Their secondary set of raptorial jaws are
located farther back in the eels’ heads, and contain their own set of sharp teeth. Like the Trapjaw, moray eels use these secondary
jaws to restrain prey and drag them deeper into their gullet. Ultimately, the Trapjaw — like the moray
— is a creature you’d have to be wary of on a dive. Deeper into the depths, another dangerous
lifeform could have been waiting in the eerie light of the Crystal Caves. The Shardrunner is a patient hunter, spinning
out long, fragile mineralized tripwires to detect prey. When an unlucky soul touches a wire, the Shardrunner
knows their location and strikes with lethal accuracy. This kind of behavior is almost convergent
with that of certain spiders on land, which likewise can sense any prey that becomes entangled
in the filaments of their web. Some spiders can sense their prey using macroreceptory
organs called silt sensilla. So, it’s likely the Shardrunner has developed
an analogous sensory organ to detect lifeforms entangled in its own mineralized web. Notably, some of these hypothetical lifeforms
are relatives of preexisting creatures that evolved to fill different niches, and as a
result possess highly divergent biology. One of the most awe-inspiring creatures from
Planet 4546B is the Reefback Leviathan of the tropics. These gentle giants almost had a polar relative
in the form of the Icebreaker Leviathan, a concept which is one of Alex Ries’s favorites. The Archivist: “So, if you could add one
creature you created that wasn’t in the final game into Subnautica: Below Zero, what
would it be? Alex Ries: “I would have gone probably with
the Icebreaker Leviathan — Remembering the Reefbacks and the impact they had on me. I thought bringing that creature, that design
into the Arctic environment could be interesting. And one possible take could be that they have
to forge their way through the ice. I knew that would have a lot of implications
when you have a creature interacting the environment like that. It could be a sort of a nesting place for
the Pengwings to live on. It could be sort of a moving ice-flow almost. In the end it wasn’t included, I think,
it just would have been very, very difficult to implement in terms of programing. But I think that would have been my choice. Aside from the Reefback, out of all the creatures
in the original Subnautica, one of the most iconic — and most imposing — was the dreaded
Reaper Leviathan. For Below Zero, Alex Ries imagined that a
smaller yet more agile relative known as the Crested Reaper might terrorize the frigid
waters. Roughly the size of an orca, the Crested Reaper
are a very different kind of predator than the Reapers we’re familiar with. In another parallel to Earth orcas, the Crested
Reaper is exceptionally cunning, able to bump ice flows to knock out of reach prey into
the water — a behavior that real orcas have been observed doing. The Crested Reaper takes this hunting strategy
a step further, however — with its characteristic crest actually a specialized ice-ram that
aids in jostling ice floats. The concept of a smarter, more maneuverable
offshoot of a Reaper Leviathan is really intriguing — albeit slightly scary… Other imagined offshoots are far less menacing. As an example, we have the Grabsquid: A smaller,
more intelligent polar relative of the huge and terrifying Crabsquid. Much like how the Crabsquid possess a mysterious
bio-electric discharge, the tiny Grabsquid can generate a weak bio-electric field. As a result, the Grabsquid is naturally drawn
to small electrical devices like batteries — a behavior that mirrors how its deep-water
relative is drawn to larger energy sources. Large animals evolving a reduced body size
in response to a limited environment is a well-documented form of adaption. My favorite Earth example of this are the
channel island mammoths, an isolated population of mammoths that were almost ten feet, or
three meters shorter, than their mainland relatives. So, the limited resources of the frigid Sector
Zero shaping the massive Crabsquid into the tiny Grabsquid holds up from an evolutionary
perspective. Curiously, an alternate name for the Grabsquid
offshoot is the Seamonkey, as this concept was actually an early take on the quite different-looking
Seamonkeys that made it into the final game. Some The Archivist: “So, in your opinion,
which creature changed the most during development.” Alex Ries: “I think actually, the Seamonkey
might have gone through the most iterations, cause that thing started off a complete blank
slate. It took quite a while to arrive on a more
friendly sort of look. Cause the focus was more on alien-ness. But we tried to make it more mischievous and
readable. It went in so many strange directions that
one of the creatures spun off into the Trivalve. So, the Trivalve was one of the early Seamonkey
attempts. But it was different enough that we managed
to spin it off into its whole other creature. In the vast skies above the teeming oceans,
we almost had a unique predator in the form of the Kitewing, a relative of the much smaller
Skyrays. The gentle Skyrays can be seen flying over
various regions of Planet 4546B, and are the only lifeform in the games to evolve powered
flight. The Kitewing would add some exciting variety
to the skies of Subnautica by being not just a passive lifeform, but a serious threat. This potent predator uses its large talons
to seize prey and carry them back to its nest. Alex Ries imagined a few different variants
of this tyrant of the skies, including one with extra talons and an imposing crest. This head crest resembles the crown structures
of certain Pterosaurs, which paleontologists believe may have emerged for social displays
and improved aerodynamics. So, it’s likely the mighty crest of the
Kitewing serves a similar purpose. It’s easy to imagine these swooping terrors
flying through the skies of planet 4546B… Returning to entirely original concepts, in
the twilight of the abyss, a predator unlike any other could made an appearance. The Ascender Worm might appear like your average,
squid-like organism at a glance. Yet what sets this lifeform apart is its highly
unusual hunting method. The small Ascender Worm might not have the
jaws or muscle to take down large prey — but it has another weapon: decompression sickness. When the Ascender Worm hunts, it grabs its
onto unsuspecting prey with two deceptively strong tentacles, and rapidly inflates with
gas — dragging its target to the surface in the hopes the pressure change will kill
them. Decompression sickness, also called the bends,
is a real danger that divers face, and is caused by gaseous bubbles forming inside the
body due to depressurization. A grim fate indeed. Other theoretical lifeforms could have even
stranger methods of attack and defense. The Shard is a creature that travels slowly
through the water vertically like a knife, luring prey from below with its glowing lure. While this glowing lure recalls to mind the
classic angler fish, the Shard’s vertical swimming posture actually reminds me of another
deep-sea creature — the elusive oarfish, which has been recorded swimming in a similar
manner. But what really makes the Shard stands out
is its defensive capabilities. When attacked, it quickly excludes hypersaline
slime which rapidly forms an ice ‘shell’ around its body — from which it suddenly
swims free. This leaves the predator to attack the shard’s
false ice ‘shadow while the real lifeform escapes. A surreal, yet ingenious form of defense. One of the more distinctive regions of Subnautica:
Below Zero is the Thermal Spires, an ecosystem defined by chimney-shaped hydrothermal vents. One species which could have been part of
this environment is the Ventspider — an arthropod-like animal would crawl between
the vents on long, spindly legs. On earth, all kinds of sea spiders have emerged,
with some large bottom dwellers that creep along the sea floor, and others light enough
to swim… although not particularly gracefully. Yet the Ventspider is unique due to its method
of getting food. It possesses feathery gills which gather sulfur
from around the vents to feed extremophile bacteria in its abdomen. Strange as this may sound, hydrothermal vents
on earth are home to all manner of specialized lifeforms that feed off the rich chemical
soup they produce. Among these lifeforms are bacteria, which
have evolved to be highly resistant to the heat of the boiling vents. So, the idea of a symbiotic alliance between
such bacteria and a larger lifeform like a Ventspider isn’t so far-fetched after all... In the original games, there’s all sorts
of dangerous creatures to look out for. But one particularly unnerving concept would
make these lifeforms even more deadly. The Rotnest is a parasite which would infect
other creatures on Planet 4546 B. This parasite would take over the brains of
their hosts, and transform into a launching platform for jet-propelled spore pods, which
would explode and infect nearby lifeforms — spreading the infection. Terrifying as this concept sounds, we can
find something similar on Earth. One infamous type of fungus can take over
the bodies of ants, hijacking their mind and essentially turning them into zombies — using
them to move to an ideal spot to sprout and spread their spores to other lifeforms. And the Rotnest works the same way, with their
host eventually passing away and the Rotnest slowly digesting what remains — and launching
spore pods at any creatures foolish enough to investigate. A truly menacing concept. Yet out of all the creatures in Subnautica:
Below Zero, the Shadow Leviathan is perhaps the most intimating and well-known. At multiple points throughout its development,
however, it looked quite different. The Archivist: “I’m curious, what was
your process like for designing the Shadow Leviathan? How did you settle on the final look for that
creature?” Alex Ries: “It came to a fork in the road
with that creature. We needed something big and scary. I did a bunch of initial sketches which had
a more tradition al— almost like a dragon-like head. It had glowing white teeth and huge jaws like
a deep-sea viperfish and stuff like that, but sort of vertebrate looking, almost. But, I also had a bunch of references of things
called arrow worms. Horrifying little invertebrates that have
a face that’s basically a bunch of nested spines coming out of it. It just did one little study where instead
of the dragon-like face, it was this more invertebrate face. Among all those that sort of connected with
people a little bit more. It was sort of disturbing. And combining that with a bit of lamprey,
and a few other marine creatures that people generally find horrifying, we moved in that
direction.” The Archivist: “It definitely scared me
during my playthrough.” And there’s one leviathan which didn’t
make it into the final game which might have been even larger than the Shadow Leviathan. The Ice Dragon is a cut creature with such
a size and design so intimidating that it lives up to its mythical namesake. We can see from the concept art that the Ice
Dragon would swim on wing like flippers — another visual nod to the dragons of Earth myth. This alien dragon wouldn’t breathe fire,
however, but release a stream of brinicle ice breath to trap vehicles — sort of like
a scaled-up version of the brine fish in the final game, which Alex Ries also designed. In fact, the Ice Dragon is so large, its size
could have been an issue in terms of actually implementing the lifeform into the game. While this in understandable, I do wish you
could encounter this frozen terror under the ice of Below Zero... And there’s one final cut lifeform we need
to cover. All throughout the original game and its sequel,
mysterious structures built by a group of aliens called Precursors or Architects remain
abandoned. The Architects only appear in game as AI or
artificial reconstructions, so we don’t have any idea what they actually look like. Or do we? This early concept art by Alex Ries shows
some potential designs for what the biological forms of Architects might look like. The Archivist: “The Architects are so mysterious
in-game, I’m curious how you decided to approach their design?” Alex Ries: “I wanted them to be sort of
fastidious creatures. A bit precise. Nerdy, almost. So, I tried to design a creature along those
lines. Something that could use the tool and the
environment that we’d already seen. Something that could use a tablet like computer,
but still alien. So, I started moving in a sort of direction
that combined amphibious references, reptilian, but I think a combination of salamanders and
mantis shrimps were my main inspiration.” The Archivist: “That’s so cool!” We’ve now seen an incredible variety of
lifeforms that almost swam in the oceans of Planet 4546B, and learned a lot about creature
design along the way. A tremendous thank you to Alex Ries for sharing
insights into his design process. If you enjoyed discovering the unseen creatures
of Subnautica and want to see more, you can support Alex Ries on Patreon using the link
in the description. And as always, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this entry, you can lend your
support by liking, subscribing, and hitting the notification icon to stay up to date on
all things Curious. See you in the next video.
