Why BELOW ZERO failed next to SUBNAUTICA

H launch in three 2 subnautica was a sleeper hit that emerged from Early Access in 2018 gaining a cult notoriety in a matter of months being made for a near $3 million when compared to say Call of Duty's marketing budget which was 300 million alone you can appreciate why it ended up in the hands of so few Gamers as a whole fans adore it reviewers critically praised it and so its popularity isn't Up For Debate but its fate of only becoming a cult classic rather than a widespread Superstar I think is a massive loss to the gaming World in subnautica you start out as what amounts to an unnamed nobody on an unremarkable ship stranded on an Uncharted uncaring world human advancements are clearly extraordinary but the crash is left you with little more than a fabricator and your trusty PDA it's this Darkly humorous AI which serves as your only companion throughout the adventure your probability of survival has just increased to unlikely but plausible and the game starts with it requesting that you hunt down Blueprints and minerals so it can get to work building you the necessary Hardware to lift you back up the food chain and Aid you escape through a combination budget restraints and Innovative design choices subnautica became a proverbial masterclass in the less is more philosophy when handling sci-fi this is because your character is facing a scenario where they've been stripped down to the bare essential survival tools and so much of the advanced human civilization you come from is merely insinuated or hinted at leaving a huge amount to the imagination this is how subnautica combines the satisfaction of futuristic Base building with simple survival tasks like scratching fish with your bare hands and for the sake of immersion it works very well for the most part the protagonist is never seen or heard and you embody this character from the moment they leap into an escape pod get knocked out and emerge to see that burning ship within a peaceful blue ocean sex Creed race age it doesn't matter because from the moment this masterpiece of emersion kicks off it really is you who is bred on an alien planet with nothing but your wits and a bulletproof PDA to keep you company your character's origin is barely expanded upon and it's not relevant to the core Narrative of the game either instead everything of relevance happens after your adventure begins and it indulges in a specific Trope featured an over Century of sci-fi epics from John Carter all the way through to the Matrix in which an unassuming protagonist is pulled into a cosmic conspiracy that just keeps getting bigger and bigger slow slowly transforming you from a humble evacu to a galactic savior before the adventure is out and then there's Suba below zero enter Robin aou the silent Riley has been swapped out for a cocky adrenaline junky xenobiologist on a personal mission to investigate her sister's death this is the farthest I can take you on company space Buck Robin you sure you want this the researches and everything it is to me and Sam I need to know what happened within the first seconds of the game she establishes her absolute contrast in character and indeed the game's Tempo when she announces I'll find my way back and then launches toward the supposed abandoned Planet 4546b through an asteroid fi spoiler alert she doesn't make it back because she conveniently forgot to take any tools with her for her journey or to Aid her Escape starting with pretty much the exact St stained toolkit as Riley who was stranded 8 years ago the isolation that came from being Shipwrecked in the first game set the scene for sure but it was the abandoned pdas telling tragic tales and Riley's tight lipped reaction to everything he found set the tone reinforcing that you should probably be taking all of this very [Music] seriously now we get to listen to Robin's bravado that contextually is totally rational oh potato I miss that fluffy little couch walrus the problem is that this might be something you only pick up in the back of your mind but the way she comments out loud constantly undermines the extent of the Peril she's in this means she's either exceptionally Brave or very stupid neither of which is the ideal candidate for a protagonist because at the end of the day you want it to be you with as little predefined characterization as possible immediately after crash landing and kicking the door off a space- hardened titanium shell like a Terminator she starts uttering PG-13 comments that have about as much immersive Nuance as an instruction M holy smokes that did not go as planned this was to be the first red flag that the direction of subnautica had changed both figuratively and literally with artistic director Charlie Cleveland passing the range to David Kina David did certainly display a passion for fan feedback in interview with ex Escapist editor Nick kandra yeah people get attached to things and that's that's a tricky thing to kind of keep in mind as a as a developer you know like we've had three different voice actors for Robin and Robin the character changed substantially a couple times as well so clearly hoping that the changes would be received well by both new players and old fans but in reality the changes may have been accepted by many but they were praised by few of course it all always easier in hindsight to point toward red flags and I don't believe this reflects badly on his Direction per se but he did talk about how they intentionally made the game more accessible by removing some gameplay beats that made the original well the original I think it's like kind of a you know a little bit of a snazzier package in ways um when you first dive in see what you did there the early game grind is at first very familiar with the surrounding safe shallows filled with The Usual Suspects but the game's imagery is as captivating As It Ever Was with a sort of clinical Star Trek Vibe for your tools matched to a backdrop of striking alien environments Now complemented by stormy Arctic water and gorgeous night cycles whenever you break the surface the user interface and interactable elements are more polished which is one of the first game shortcomings having been built at cost and unity but most of these additions look to be exclusively lifted from the moding community with a number of essential quality of life improvements like automatic pulling items from your storage while using the fabricator or being able to craft multiple items simultaneously still shunned in favor of what they did add so it wouldn't exactly choke this up as a win on the part of below zero as you begin the inevitable push outward for something more exciting than titanium and seaglide fragments at some point the disappointing reality of below Zero's shrunken map will become apparent you won't discover this in the first few hours of playing for sure sure but the first game featured countless exciting nuggets of content laid out across a sparse and expansive ocean it took dozens of hours to explore always left you feeling small and insignificant and actively discouraged you from approaching the edge simply by placing it so far away and making it the scariest biome in the game with so much to do in between you and there why even bother other than for the thrill but in below Z you straight up hit an ice wall in two directions before your first base is even complete and it doesn't really take too much longer than that to receive the chilling PDA announcement when heading in the opposite direction warning entering ecological Dead Zone the prospect for survival is fast approaching zero especially as certain plot requirements will take you within feet of this border anyway damn satellite hasn't passed by in a while I guess I what you're doing the majority of what you do find between the shallows and the map Edge is packed with twisting tunnels tight crevices and dainty little caves all of which are an absolute nightmare to navigate with anything other than a seag Glide the game does feature some wonderful new set pieces that expand the signal World while staying every bit true to the aesthetic Vision including an aged habitat evidence of industrial work by Alterra and a down spaceship called the Mercury the mercury in particular is by far the closest to the wreckages and survivors tales of the original game and does an awesome job of scattering the pdas so you read them in a similar chronological order as they occurred before inevitably ending in tragedy my instincts are never wrong Stephanos has always been overly cautious as you navigate these corridors your vehicle spotlights flooding the entrance and predators circling just beyond reading these stories and collecting new toys for your base you will feel as alive in the world of subnautica as you ever have but aside from these three genuinely memorable locations that make up no more than two or 3 hours of gameplay and a bunch of throwaway alien ruins that shamelessly serve as nothing more than beacons to draw you to a new area the majority of the remaining story takes place on land and so rather than happening across fragments of narrative on the seafloor that are understandably abandoned because their inhabitants are well you know dead now we fall back to the lazy Trope in which voice memos that completely incriminate everybody featured are just scattered around abandoned Altera outposts what if I just found a way to take care of the deadly bacterium which in theory have actually been investigated by Altera before being abandoned I can only conclude that the cause of the collapse was Employee negligence it's just lazy and leaves a bad taste in the back of your mouth if immersion was what you were looking for when you came to this game of three outposts where these plot developments take place those in zero and Delta are in fact suitably Compact and free of Hazards to allow you to explore Bank cool new habitat modules and Escape before they wear out their welcome integrating new PDA data the temperature gauge was one of the things that the devs toyed with keeping or removing we like had a survival system for the cold and changed it a bunch of times and then removed it and then put it back and in these areas it served nicely to make you pick up the pace and get back to the water without messing around this should have been the template for all three the largest island however featuring the fee robotics Hub is the biggest biome in the game and contains the bulk of the game's core narrative and negotiating all its intersections is nothing short of a chore it contained a rabbit waren of white tunnels white Open Spaces white clothes spaces and uncoincidentally white floor and fr it's freaking huge and so boring to Traverse now we do get a return to form as we approach the epicenter of this segment the area is infested with a gigantic ice worms that fit the Leviathan brief perfectly and although the regularity of their attacks breaks over time when they finally make an appearance most often you hear them erupt behind you while you're on the move and so it encourages you not to turn back and look which does a great job of preserving their Mystique unless of course you are unwise or unlucky enough to Brave the area without adequate tools at which point they zero in and take you out with extreme prejudice as is the subnautica way these snow stalkers however will make you long for the water no longer restricted by underwater viewing distance or assigned biomes their presence isn't scary as much as it is just irritating to manage they can be circumnavigated sometimes but moving through them isn't possible like it is with stalkers and sharks this is because the movement controls are fine for exploring but they weren't designed for combat and evasion Beyond perhaps taking pot shots at scavengers and so now feel actively clunky in contrast to the six access maneuverability found underwater and so in a couple of cases I found myself on a ledge taking pot shots at their little hit box between attack animations having then found their babies in a cave I realized how much I resented the game for putting me in this position I pretty much killed nothing in the first game Beyond unfortunate fish and a couple of incessant crap squids enjoying the imersion born out of trying to be responsible within the fictional ecosystem the Aurora's radioactive fallout will have devastating effects on the alien ecosystem if not contained within the next 24 hours subnautica was never about facing creatures you could do battle with while equipped with just a survival knife like a trained soldier got you [ __ ] it was perfect when there were creatures that you could swim around or massive boss level monstrosities that scare the life out of you which you wouldn't dream of fighting and nothing in between thanks to a wealth of Sy terrain tedious navigation and an unremarkable soundtrack for the area the few set pieces that are found simply aren't enough to justify the scale of this landbased segment especially as the conclusion to the story about your sister is so positively anticlimactic you're not actually sure if it's ended this wasn't negligence that's not Sam this was something else The Voice Memos you uncover simply don't tell the whole story which is nothing new for subnautica but whereas once it would be up for you to decipher the big picture at best you could this time around we play as Robin who actually came to the planet and went through all this Survivor hell just to discover these very details as far as I could tell it was none other than margarit who encouraged your sister to blow up the dig site she makes a joke about the explosives she made being way too powerful and then she gives your sister some of these overpowered explosives after which your sister fudged up the job which killed herself and her colleague I get that Altera is supposed to be the evil face less Mega Corp it's a cliche but it actually works here the thing is the only evidence we see in the game of any wrongdoing is margarit being thoroughly irresponsible and your sister being even more incompetent these are actually pretty solid beats for an interesting story with a mixed moral message if you were a silent Observer like Riley but here we are playing as Robin who now knows and what does she do [ __ ] all when you find margarite she just sits around and ignores you and when you have your evidence that she's at fault she's nowhere to be found and Robin never even bothers radioing her Robin traveled across a Galaxy for answers it's so weak anticlimactic barely covers it it's unfinished is what it is you need anything else don't bother me and so by adding physical characters to the game where there were none before and then having an irrational lack of communication between them all it does is just highlights the lack of realism this is why the added narrative as welcome as it may have been narratives are awesome obviously it spoiled the formula and didn't improve it and speaking of the soundtrack The critically acclaimed sounds and music from the first game were nothing short of a golden Gauntlet laid down by Simon chilinski and responsibility to take the mantle forward after his dismissal was handed to Ben kundi it was a huge job and he took it in his stride Shifting the excellent techno ambient Vibe of the original towards something of a slower and more mysterious and Whimsical nature 54 independent tracks apparently play their part in bringing below zero to life such as inciting calm in the Arctic [Music] shallows experiencing a in the face of [Music] beauty or Intrigue during [Music] exploration memorable as they are in truth while reviewing I didn't recognize half of them which makes me question how the music was actually implemented into exploration or indeed how well written they were and this is chalk and cheese next to subnautica somebody as versatile as chilinski was not an easy act to follow especially as alongside the music he created the iconic and visceral sound effects which were a tremendous part of suba's identity welcome up Captain all systems online the changes are countless but just one example would be the sound Riley makes when he makes it to the surface after nearly drowning you can really feel it but Robin nothing this is an immersion driven underwater Survival game where where breathing is the core currency of the game and they dumped the sound of gasping for air why the final result of bry's effort was a somewhat dull and mellow tribute with the punch your entry still failing to encapsulate the scene with the same Spirit as those from the first if you're a fan of subnautica then you only need to hear a few gentle notes to be taken straight back to the safe shallows alongside the gentle bubbling of your rebreather or how about after hours of braving the depths of nothing but a reinforced dive suit and grafting hard to put all of the parts together you finally Dawn the armored shell of your Exo Suit and remind Planet 4546b who is the king of tech on this [Music] rock and then there's the mysterious vocals around the crash site that might give you an unshakable angst that you're suddenly pushing into Leviathan [Music] territory oh last but certainly not least The Punchy finale as you prepare to leave the world and your beloved bases behind forever [Music] 1 the finale of below zero was cool but it just doesn't [Music] compare naturally the base building was evolved too this time including a cavernous pod that can be divided up with internal walls which was a welcome addition to the solely circular structures of subnautica its functionality was still limited but the modular interior gave so much more po potential than the circular pods and it's difficult to remember playing subnautica without them a glass roof was added too which allowed for the sky box and godr to further light up your base and these were just two of the various innovations that allowed the player to better capitalize on the beauty of the world and construct that unique windown space that you would crave after braving new deaths which is probably why unknown worlds then updated subnautica to include these additional habitats as you will discover if you play it now ingesting one of below Zero's greatest traits in a single bite but these improvements as welcome and Innovative as they were are easy to identify and were to be expected from team so competent that they built the first game on a shoestring budget especially considering Base building was one of the pillars the game was built on for all these pros and cons it wasn't actually the shrinking of the map or the frustrating changes to the terrain in both the water and hand on land the immersion spoiling narrative or the loss of an outstanding soundtrack that is most to blame for the dramatic drop in user scores in my opinion you see Metacritic showed a drop in aggregated review scores from 87 to 82 between games but a user score decrease from 86 right down to 65 which is like very good to okay and this tells us quite a lot critics generally play Under time pressure and if you sail through below zero one biome after another and scavenge only to progress the story you'll Feast on a banquet rich with narrative pretty light and Relentless monsters you'll likely throw together a quirky hodg Podge base that gets the job done and makes you smile discover a small handful of exciting new locations skip over much of the map as you whiz around and make it out alive with a mighty tail to tell it would be a blast no doubt but if you do this of course you'll miss miss out on a tremendous amount of what subnautica is all about freedom to roam the environment in any direction to scavenge to hoard and build to stumble across abandoned facilities with stories to uncover the freedom to test your wits by pushing one into territorial Waters of alien predators in the first subnautica I allowed myself to take immense time to absorb and then harvest the seabed progressing the story periodically when I felt like it I racked up almost 200 hours on my first playthrough which is rare for me I only really enjoy this kind of grind in the most exceptionally immersive games I literally burn the subnautica gauges into my screen look I'm not joking my point is it requires an immensely careful balance of gameplay mechanics that allow for the setup of an explore build cycle to be as addictive and have so much longevity as this and in that respect below zero fell a long way short and and I believe the reason for this is because they rebalanced and irreparably spoiled how the horror to Terror ratio works in the game which was by far their most egregious crime when compared to all the immersion spoiling gameplay changes Charlie Cleveland identified in an interview with ARs Technica that the horror aspect of subnautica could almost be described as an unintentional side effect then we released the reaper Leviathan people went completely Bonkers and it's like then we just lined up all these other big creatures not all scary but that fundamentally changed our development by watching players and seeing what they actually responded to I think most fans actually know this by this point it does come up quite a lot the game has no scripted events or jump scares not one but instead prompts you to navigate near or occasionally through bodies of water that are hunting grounds for Leviathan actually one in particular and we all know exactly which one I'm talking about everybody has a different story story about The Reaper and in my case having gone into subnautica completely blind after maybe 10 hours of gently exploring the seed and building a little base the creation of a radiation suit led me to a casual expedition of retrieving pieces of scrap from the back of the sunken Aurora you have to believe me when I tell you I had absolutely no inkling whatsoever that anything more dangerous than a bone shark existed in the game it was 3:00 a.m. my earphones were ramped up so I could enjoy the sounds of my rebreather and it was with the enticing thought of extending a vertical tube so my little base could extend above the water then I calmly floated about the seabed when I heard an unusual cry in the distance that's new I thought as I returned to the task at hand the resulting shock to my nervous system was so absolute and utterly crippling I think I did cry out and pulled my head back so far I literally developed a third chip the way it whips you around is something I swear I'll take to my grave yes I've known for a long time now that killing the Reaper with a knife for Tik Tok views is possible but most of us don't do that because being scared of it is fun it aids the immersion you sit there and you craft a knife and you knife a Reaper Leviathan somehow a thousand times and you finally manage to kill it it doesn't play a sound but it just kind of Falls limp and it just kind of drifts down to the bottom of the ocean it's really unrewarding this approach to moments of Horror versus the ongoing angst that you feel simply by moving around in the dark turned out to be a wildly popular subject that I explained in my previous video so I'll keep it short as you might have heard me discuss it before but I like to quote an 18th century Gothic writer named and Radcliffe who famous helped def find the difference between Terror and horror when she argued that Terror and horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of Life the other contracts freezes and nearly annihilates them now I know this sounds complicated but I'm on to something I promise all that means is terror is the constant fear that you're about to experience something scary and so you continue to feel the thrill of being on edge horror on the other hand is literally experiencing that scary event so jump scares are horrifying but the build up to that horrifying moment the ongoing dread that at some point it might come that is Terror this ecolog iCal biome much as seven of the N preconditions for stimulating Terror in humans films that rely on Brutal deaths over and over like say slashers aren't actually scary because when you experience enough horror you build up a resistance to it and it loses its [Music] effect it's human nature and so the best cinematic experiences use frightening scenes sparingly so that they can keep you on edge for the remaining run time oh I know where you're hiding great examples of this nuanced balance can naturally be found in cinema like the scene from the thing where John Carpenter builds tension as you wait for the moment that the petri dish will explode and reveal the killer he keeps you tense and then comes the bait and switch as he masterfully distracts you with some dialogue and your guard is down you were the only one that could have got to that blood we'll do you last that's when the horror comes he reinforces that it won't come when you expect it but it will come eventually so be afraid and stay [Music] afraid this is a balance that only the best get right and this is where natica absolutely excelled if you stuck to the pop you could complete the game with very little exposure to these scary elements but it used the promise of precious resources or tantalizing clues that something might be hidden close by to beckon you into the darkness and that was when the game got real this particular Reaper got me around the Aurora as it did so many others specifically because the low visibility and Scattered goodies were implied to be part of the set piece part of the crash landing but they weren't they were all part of the reaper hunting ground and if you followed the trails of breadcrumbs the spontaneous event that might follow would be so memorable that it would ensure you would treat every new area henceforth with the c it deserved this is what turned a 40-hour game into a 200h hour game for me and I loved every second of it my senses were always dialed up to 11 as I explored and In fairness it was with good reason because when these moments did come they were so very hard to [Applause] forget attack below zero completely misunderstood this concept Kina talks about making the game more accessible for anybody interested in the game unfortunately people who are just interested in the game are not the same immersion obsessed fan base that lifted the first title on their shoulders and screamed from the rooftops that this game needs more attention people who are just interested in the game want to have the infamous horror they heard about from the first game to be handed to them on a platter without having to immerse themselves in an unproven slow burner that occasionally uses horror elements as a reward for your patients and if you need evidence let me tell you take the squid shark for example which is likely the first Leviathan you'll encounter in a fissure beneath the twisty Bridges guarding a cave spotted with some much needed early game resources a PDA entry from an alterer employee named Fred does a good job of setting the tension I'm not going to get pooped out of the back end of a sea mon to save all teror of money shortly after this you'll inevitably see it patrolling the waters and looking menacing it's a gnly looking creature too and while tragically small due to below Zero's excessive Reliance on enclosed spaces more importantly it's unable to wander far and wide it bounces off the walls like a goldfish in a bowl and it's almost guaranteed to attack you within seconds of being in the cave again and again and again I swear this thing could see through the bloody walls as well anxiety inducing yes there was fear there for sure but not because of the anxiety of hearing that fateful Roar and knowing it's time to make a Mad Dash and hope that this isn't the time that it gets you that instead because its constant attacks might get you killed and you'll lose your precious resources these Scare Tactics were not at all reminiscent of the thalassophobia inducing anxiety of the first where the vast Open Spaces left you feeling hopelessly small and vulnerable sometime after this we meet the giant prawn or shrimp or Calvis Leviathan if you want to be technical about it and if this wasn't on the short list of rejected content for the first game that I don't know what is but being the ocean apex predator it replaced none other than the iconic Reaper I guess it mouth is supposed to make you jump back in shock when you realize that it isn't in fact a prawn duh taking the vast differences in design out of the equation then consider this the reaper was tactically located in locations like for example just beyond the entrance point of the Aurora or just beyond the endgate phase portal heading where you were told and proceeding with caution meant that direct confrontation could be avoided eventually it would probably happen but it would be on your own time and because you pushed your luck this giant shrimp though this thing was set to patrol directly over the opening which led into the deep caves a spot you visit constantly whether accessing the alterior mind or the endgame Cave System you came here so often you're forced into its path repeatedly it lost its Mystique before it had the chance to create any and as a result there's no longer a for boing feeling as you navigate his hunting grounds which leaves the entire segment woefully boring and it's only then that you begin to realize how much Reliance subnautica placed on the fear of the unknown especially in the deeper darker segments to distract you from the more modest environments this wasn't always the case obviously but it's no coincidence that the Reapers often haunt arid planes with limited viability considering that the twisty Bridges were frustrating to navigate the dunken potholes were confusing the Frozen Landscapes were a miserable chore the vents remind you of a little more than mosquito swarms in summer and the overall size seemingly being a fraction of subnauticas it starts to become apparent how lacking below Zero's biome offering actually is compare this to subnautica's Gentle shallows Lush Islands fluorescent bulb Zone mushroom caves blood caves Lost River Aurora perimeter the Aurora itself literal square kilometers of varied ocean floor that contained countless treats and an excess of mysterious alien ruins and the comparison is painfully one-sided however for all of that thank the gods that below zero pulled it out of the bag for the endgame segment uh after so many hours expanding through the oceans of subnautica one of its most memorable transitions was the discovery of the Lost River one end of which contained the beautiful giant Cove tree which marked the plunge into the endgame biome expansive lava Fields protected by the largest leviathans yet guarded a sunken alien sanctum inside of which awesome alien Machinery provided some vital answers we are curious whether you swim with the current or fight against it as they did for a survival Game This Is The Stuff dreams are made of because most players would understandably presume the ocean held all secrets and so these lengthy final biomes exceeded all possible expectations the sheer scale of the journey through them reminded you that Cyclops or not you were still a small fish in a big pond forcing you to once again plan out Expeditions that would have you burn through your fully stocked cupboard of consumables and so what was this mighty phen replaced with caves horrible cramped sey claustrophobic boring caves apparently designed to be oppressively enclosed and easy to get lost in if you don't have a good sense of direction and haunted by no less than four comically ill suited Predators considering the confined terrain proceed with caution a class feature is near navigating these areas was nothing short of tedious there is literally not one single redeeming feature except for I guess the kind of cool looking crystals these leviathans are no doubt the game's most memorable predator and aesthetically they do stand up to subnautica's dragons that they replaced with a long flowing tail and creepy legs that was presumably influenced by cave dwelling insects they might have even had the potential to match the Reaper's intimidating presence if integrated effectively like for example if there had just been one and it was super deadly and seeing it force you to double back but instead cramped in as they are they target you so relentlessly that avoiding them becomes pointless transforming a wonderfully designed enemy into a simple obstacle that requires just a few medkits and a fully charged repair tool to byot it's not a matter of if it's matter of when and so it's quicker and actually less intimidating to just head through their path take to hit and move on just like the shrimp and just like the squid climbing out of your prawn suit to administer repairs as you scan the dark ocean for your aggressor used to be the most nerve-wracking maneuver in subnautica you'd be convinced that something was silently coming up behind you for a death blow now it just becomes a matter of course as you get into a rhythm of being tossed about and then repairing and then rinse repeat they're not scary they're just not so if you thought the giant prawn had its little smash to Pieces then this thing is 10 times worse because it acts more like a dog that keeps nipping at the postman's ankles than a god tier apex predator that's stalking your scent and when you compare the shadow Leviathan and this endgame area to the Lost River where you try to outrun ghost leviathans and crab squids in your Cyclops that was so much fun buzzing around your ship fixing cracks and putting out fires it was just so memorable and a tents run through their breeding ground left you shaken after you made it out the other [Music] side the final Crystal Cave is a welcome and instantly recognizable design but considering it represents the finale of the entire game it hardly goes toe-to-toe with the cavernous Lava Pits of the first the fact that the Cyclops doesn't even exist in this game was a controversial choice to say the least because when the Cyclops arrived in subnautica it was one of the most surprising and rewarding discoveries throughout a sub so massive that you couldn't believe they could even be in the game that you controlled first person which along with its unrefined Collision physics only went and up to the immersion of the game even more it was your Moving Castle and being able to build habitat components on board was inspired but the truth is with mostly shallow terrains tiny cave systems ice covering much of the surface and sporadic vegetation sticking out every which way even if it were available it would have been ill suited to to the map the iconic little sea moth was painful to lose too but In fairness the sea truck was every bit as welld designed and a great addition the problem was in order to make the shrunken map less evidence to players player swimming speed was reduced the ultra Glide fins were removed the booster tank was nerfed and the Sea truck was slower to start with and got worse with every section attached it also featured useless modules like the sleeper and the aquarium 2 and the more you added the more likely the truck was to get wedged into terrain all of which worked against it and then by presenting it as a competitor to the cyclop Sea moth combo especially when you recognize that the Cyclops was assassinated in order to cover up the game's diminished environments you realize that no matter how good the seat truck is it just can't compete when all is said and done where subnautica originally grew into an underwater survival simulator with immersion being at its core below zero tried to re-engineer it best elements into a tighter richer narrative driven adventure and on a surface level it did succeed at this but those weren't the elements that made subnautica so iconic but below zero utilized Early Access feedback for 2 years which means not even the Early Access Community fully understood what they were helping shape precisely where subnautica 3 will take place seems to be up for debate but Charlie Cleveland did tweet last year what would excite you most about the next game in the subnautica universe and of the 5,000 odd responses story was in fact the lowest return okay I thought that's reassuring that people have spoken but what took the top spot was not in fact biomes but none other than Co-op well we've seen survival horror Staples like Resident Evil get almost destroyed by introducing Co-op and I'm always on the fence because I grew up on co-ops I love them do it now give them the shot but that is surely the absolute Nemesis of immersion driven experiences however it does seem like the next practical step for a developer with increasingly Grand Ambitions in the same tweet somebody responded with the answer Birds which bizarrely was the only tweet Cleveland liked which again spun up the online Rumor Mill and all of this just leaves me a little bit anxious because Birds mean land and if land and co-op gameplay are indeed two major focuses of the next title no matter how many sales they make the is ation is Spirit of the first game is unlikely to ever return in the same form are you excited for the next subnautica and if so what would you introduce to the series or indeed what would you purge from below zero as always let me know in the comments I can never get enough of talking about subnautica if you can like or sub I would be so so grateful I've only just hit 2,000 subscribers and I have a long way to go thank you so much for watching take care of yourself and hopefully see you next time n

Channel: The Casual Gamer

Views: 131,211

Keywords: subnautica, below zero, charlie cleveland, David Kalina, unknown worlds, immersion, robin ayou, reaper, leviathan, cyclops, seamoth, seatruck

Id: XK5BCIBU7Zw

Length: 43min 5sec (2585 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024