SUBNAUTICA

GAME REVIEW

In a world full of survival games, comes a very unique survival game! Subnautica is not a horror game, but it sometimes feels like one. Various game reviewers consider this game to be one of the best games released in 2018. It spent quite a long time in early access and had plenty of game breaking bugs during the start of development. Now the game is quite stable and can be played without many hiccups.

Just like most survival games, you will have to manage your resources, craft new items and explore the kind of open world to get better items. Your objective is to escape and this game doesn’t make that easy at all.

Plot

The game takes place on an alien planet! The planet is a water planet! That means there is hardly any land and you will spend 98 percent of your time swimming from one point to another.

The protagonist’s main ship malfunctions and crash lands on this water planet. The protagonist manages to use a life pod to escape, but almost no one survives the crash. Some other life pods manage to land as well on the planet, but the passengers do not make it. You are quite literally the only human being on the planet and you must build a rocket to get back to earth.

The planet is full of alien creatures that are somewhat similar to the water creatures we find on earth. Of course, some of these aliens are very hostile and try to eat you. You find out later in the game that a foreign bacteria is also present on the planet which is slowly killing all living things, including you. So you have a limited time to escape.

You also find out that the water planet was home to an advanced civilization that was using this planet to develop a cure for the infection caused by the bacteria that is on this planet. That race was almost wiped out of existence due to that bacterium. They failed to find a cure and ended up accidently releasing the bacterium into the water.

You will need to find a cure for yourself before you leave the planet! For that, you will be forced to use the technology left behind by that advanced civilization and finish their work. You will have to do all of that before the infection kills you!

Gameplay

The only thing that makes this game unique and different from other survival games is the plot. Since this game takes place on a water planet, the creatures and environments are very unique! It does have all of the survival game elements as well, but not the ones that will get in your way. Exploration is where all the fun of the game lies! And thankfully, the developers knew this and made exploration a lot of fun!

You will have to manage food, hunger and oxygen. You will need to craft equipment that will allow you to go deeper and explore further! This is what the game will force you to do! You will search the depths of the ocean and look for ores, blueprints and ingredients for your next big ship.

You have to do all of that while avoiding all of the hostile alien creatures that will try to eat you alive! The only real weapon you have is a knife! No guns.

The leviathans in this game can kill you with a single bite. They can also destroy your biggest ships and ruin your progress. They are also super scary!

The sound design

This game’s sound design is beautiful! At times, some of the hostile creatures will scare you just by the sounds they make. Many famous YouTubers quit the game after encountering the first leviathan. They are that scary!

Some people deliberately avoid going to areas that have leviathans. This is not a horror game, but the sound design makes it scary. The feeling that something is going to pop up behind you and bite you is always there. You never feel safe as soon as you start going further and further away from your lifepod. Even the smallest predators can cause quite a panic.

The creatures

Most of the creatures on the planet are not hostile. The ones that are can really be irritating at time. The smaller shark like creatures in this game are called ‘stalkers’ and they can get in the way of your exploration. Then there are some types of fish that explode and cause massive damage to your health.

Most of the fish is edible and you can use your life pod to cook the fish. There is plant life on the planet as well, which you can eat or use to craft various items.

Some of the bigger creatures are docile and just make very cool sounds!

Crafting

Unlike most survival games, the gathering of materials and crafting is not difficult. Most of the items can be constructed with readily available materials which you can find in the water. It is only the special items that require blueprints which are not easy to find. The blueprints are dropped at random in the world, and aren’t easy to find sometimes.

Blueprints are hidden in the world, and the player will need to craft various items to get to them. Of course, this will require hours of playtime and can get very tedious. The player may lose batteries and equipment when exploring the world.

Performance

Being an indie title, this game still suffers from performance issues. Random frame drops and crashes are quite common. Physics glitches are also quite common in this game. The released version is much better than the early access version however!

You can buy it on the PC and run it at a smooth 60 fps most of the time with a mid-range PC. You will need a powerful CPU, though, and a good pair of headphones to truly enjoy the game.

Summary

Subnautica is one of the best games of 2018, no doubt. It is a very unique survival game and is genuinely scary at times. It tests your courage and manages to make you feel like you are actually in the game. The game is best played with headphones on!

You must craft the most basic items first and proceed from there.

Score: 9/10