Subnautica: Below Zero

Subnautica is the only game released since '05 that I've given 5 stars to and it still doesn't feel quite right.

While I only followed the development cycle toward the tail end of early access and find their glass-door game development policy very attractive, it only takes seeing early alpha footage to see they'd conceptually struck gold. No doubt that conquering the high seas with your Neptunian seabase while listening to System Shock 2-level audio diaries over IDM is fucking sick, for sure, but on a mechanical level it's totally harmonious. How it did what games like Breathedge and The Forest are fundamentally incapable of providing with essentially the same resources still fascinates me endlessly today. The use intimidation tactics to impede progress (draw distance and water color, animalistic sound design) are the same techniques they use to saturate the feelings of accomplishment when you finally found where lithium deposits were located or crack open your first shipwreck. The ocean is bone-chilling, but staring at the skybox is not an alternative. Assessing the threat level of a new creature will gradually morph into marvel. I could go on. Simmered down to its last, this was classic "fear of the unknown" done more creatively and sincerely since days before fire. Though an issue arises in creating a meaningful narrative into an endless ocean: how deep does it go?

While initially championing itself as an industry standard arctic expansion (there's a lot), Unknown Worlds, in their hubris, set out to right a few wrongs. Beginning development, it was decided to make land segments a larger focus, the player character was to be fully voiced, and entire scripted events branching from a strong lead narrative were being drawn up. This game is leaning on a leg injury. So it's my Subnautica, no question, but lopsided and vastly misunderstands its best qualities. They kill the creature design and some of the environments, so shoutsout to the designers who were even more limited by the arctic environments to produce flora and fauna. I think the oxygen plants and holefish are also a very interesting way to incentivize free-diving for the first few hours, but mucking with the simplicity of the original was going to disappoint no matter what. The plot is uninterested in itself, the non-PDA-recording voice acting is amateur, the vehicles offer very little confidence boost (an important gameplay component imo), and the attention to land segments feels like wasted effort that could have been spent on making memorable, organic gamplay occurrences than having a dedicated flavortext department. On the whole, it's a game with every intention to be additive to its predecessor's legacy, but cheapens the brand when packaged together.