PC and console games

Developer: Unknown Worlds	Graphics:
Publisher: Unknown Worlds	Sound:
Year: 2018	Difficulty:
Genre: Action-adventure	Lastability:
Number of players: 1	Rating:	8/10

I found squid squashed on my windshield. Should I read a comic book, again?

At the moment, I’m enjoying a rather amusing pastime: judging video games by their title screens! Remarkably, first impressions often prove true. Take a look at some examples: Space Hulk: Deathwing (pretentious and overloaded), Deep Rock Galactic (a “laundry detergent packet game”, messy and characterless), Vermintide 2 (direct, stylised, engaging!). And then for Subnautica, looking at these rudimentary fluorescent blue menus and this default Windows typeface (Trebuchet MS?), the first words that came to mind were “amateur” and “unfinished”.

In truth, the right word would be “indie”. Subnautica was indeed released in early access back in 2014 and hasn’t stopped evolving since (an expansion arrived in 2020). I got into it late, for fear of early access syndrome. You know, when you’re drawn to the announcement of a game in development, try it, love it, play it loads, get bored due to lack of content; and when it finally releases, several months later, you’ve developed an aversion and no longer want to return to it. I suffered from this malady with Space Engineers and Risk of Rain 2. I understand this process is a contemporary constraint inherent to the production costs of even a moderately ambitious 3D game; but personally, it puts me off. What can you do? I like my games complete and debugged.

To finish with first impressions, I do have one compliment to make, and a big one: imagine being able to configure all the keys (even the arrows! even “Ctrl”!), and on top of that, to assign the same key to multiple actions! It’s so simple and yet so rarely implemented. I remember cursing Borderlands for not letting me use the same button to reload my weapon and open a door (not without resorting to a macro).

Yes, this review will be an excuse for me to vent my frustration about current games, as I rarely have the opportunity in other sections. I’m also going to shamelessly reveal Subnautica’s plot, so if you plan to play it, do so, and come back to read the rest of this page later. Its strength lies primarily in the pleasure of discovery. I therefore advise you to dive in (oh oh oh!) knowing nothing more than this: it’s a survival game in a “handmade” underwater world (that is, without procedural generation—we’d lost the habit!), where classic resource management combines with an equally classic equipment crafting system. Your short-term objectives: find drink, food, escape predators. And when you have time: explore the area, reach out to potential survivors, then make like a tree and get out of here.

The story begins like this: the interstellar vessel “Aurora”, housing some 150 passengers and crew members (including you, of course), has crashed on a planet almost entirely covered by water. You regain consciousness, alone, inside a tiny floating escape pod. At your disposal are a handheld computer (which talks), a diving suit, and a very convenient fabrication device, capable of desalinating water, cooking fish, or synthesising all sorts of objects from metals or other “biological” ingredients gathered on-site.

Once you exit the pod, you find yourself in the water, surrounded by a bustling, colourful wildlife. Noisy too. A world that seems to be doing just fine without you. The scenery is pleasing to the eye and credible. However, later in the game, when you get to scramble “in the dry”, I mean, walk, you’ll clearly feel that the game engine isn’t optimized for that. Rather like a fish thrown onto a trawler’s deck, as it were. Plus, the emerged world will present you with textures that, up close and personal, are undeniably less attractive to look at than the seabed from 100 metres away.

The “survival” component is quite lenient, with death inflicting practically no penalty (except for the traditional hardcore mode which gives you only one life). As soon as you’ve kicked the bucket, you’ll wake up in your little starting cocoon, in possession of all your items, or nearly all.

As for the exploration phase, I’d describe it as “semi-autonomous”. While there’s no map available (a good thing), the game doesn’t shy away from the ubiquitous navigation points displayed on the screen. I felt too often like I was being led by the hand. I would have preferred if they’d just let me figure things out with no indication, not even a compass. Why not make use of that charming starry sky to orient myself, for example?

Yet, despite its moderate difficulty, the game genuinely gives you the willies! I attribute this to the quality of the staging. Between the lack of light in the depths, the size and aggressiveness of the creatures (which unfortunately increases as you go deeper and the light becomes scarcer!), and the visual effects indicating that something has just smacked you in the face (a crack appearing on your helmet’s visor, or water starting to leak into your submarine’s cockpit). Everything you observe reminds you at every moment that you are tiny and fragile (and unarmed, most of the time).

The sound design isn’t lacking either. You hear predators well before seeing them. Some carnivorous fish emit beast-like roars, but the unidentifiable noises are the most nerve-wracking. There’s a wide variety of creatures and each contributes its own little ditty. In the dark, each new sound is a source of anxiety! Furthermore, short baroque musical sequences are played at chosen occasions, one does not know quite how or why. It’s simple, as soon as the “action music” triggers, I start fleeing without reason, by Pavlovian reflex. My buttocks are clapping in applause!

I’d also like to commend the absence of procedural generation, a bias that’s far too exploited at present. I believe taking the time to build a unique environment is the only way to achieve an immersive game (it would be the height of irony to fail at immersion in Subnautica, wouldn’t it?). [An abyssal summit. – Ed.]
An example: FTL, where the “procedural” approach destroys the atmosphere, in my opinion. I prefer to play a game once and remember it. One could say the same about the absence of two-player cooperative mode. When a game is designed to be played alone, it’s more refined in its presentation, and automatically more memorable.

I have two anecdotes to share that illustrate this successful atmosphere.
Spoiler alert!

My first adventure begins upon receiving a distress signal, sent by other survivors, like myself, trapped aboard their survival pod. But they weren’t able to give me their exact position: “about a kilometre southwest of the Aurora wreckage”. I was equipped with a compass, but to gauge the distance, I found no other way than to craft a beacon, which I would place near the crash site. The idea was to move southwest while occasionally turning back towards the beacon, whose position and distance were permanently displayed on screen. So, off I went, at the helm of a nice little submarine I’d just learned to build. I stopped in front of the Aurora’s “bow” and descended “on flippers” to place my beacon. The game allows us to name our beacons, which is quite handy for surveying the region. Thus, I clicked on it and started typing: “Aurora (bow)”.
As soon as I opened the parenthesis, a deafening rumble made me jump from my seat. A sort of giant shark, the size of a building, swooped down on me! I panicked and rushed towards my submarine, stationed a few metres away, but the monster passed in front of me and snatched my vehicle with its mouth, shaking it frantically. I made a U-turn and launched into the swim of my life, straight ahead, caring little which direction. I could hear an alarm siren coming from the submarine, like a cry of pain, and a few seconds later, an anguishing silence…

I managed to make it back to my escape pod. My insides were knitting doilies, but I was safe and sound. The beacon hadn’t been touched, and from then on, until the end of the game, that strange on-screen inscription remained: “Aurora (”, with the parenthesis open, as if to taunt me. I never dared return to rename my beacon…

Not long after, I managed to establish communication with a cargo ship that had diverted its course to rescue me! The captain transmitted coordinates of a small island and arranged to meet me there. I prepared provisions and set off aboard submarine number 2. I was a bit bummed that I had finished the game so quickly, as it didn’t seem like I’d explored everything. I finally arrived half an hour early, which left me time to visit the island. There was a sort of alien ruin inside which I wandered. It was obviously deserted and there wasn’t much to do there, so I eventually came out and waited for my rescuer on the beach. A few minutes later, the captain contacted me by radio, ordered his crew to begin descent; I saw a dot in the sky, which grew larger.

“Survivor, we see you!”

“Man, I don’t know how you held out down there.”

And at that instant, the ruin began to move … to change shape … a protuberance began to glisten, and … kaboom! An energy beam struck the ship. Explosion. Silence…

I briefly stood there, dumbfounded, alone on my beach, tuna sandwich in hand. I watched myself make the journey back and return to my pod, once again (I managed to bring my submarine back intact, at least). I felt foolish, lost, insignificant. I’d just been duped by the game, thinking I’d finished it, and realising I’d just lost my only hope of leaving this planet (and my only human contact, for that matter). I was, in reality, only at the very beginning! And that was precisely the best moment of the adventure, its pinnacle.

Later still, I learned to construct habitable modules. A base, basically. And gradually, routine began to set in: gathering things to craft stuff, improving a vehicle to be able to descend deeper, harvesting new resources, allowing new improvements to be unlocked, and so forth. It must be said that from the moment you set up a vegetable garden, the “survival” element becomes trivial; and once you acquire an immobilising weapon to protect against predators, the tension drops dramatically.

Paradoxically, for me, what degrades the carefully woven atmosphere is learning more about the plot. Did we need a plot? Mystery gives way to predictable developments, based on “go fetch this and click there”. Personally, I grew abruptly weary towards the end, from the moment a whale started talking to me… I suddenly felt like I was in a Miyazaki film, and I really don’t like Miyazaki films (I’d rather find myself in an episode of Rick and Morty, given the choice).

Another thing that irritates me is the lazy resort to every possible video game cliché, like these inevitable audio recordings, carelessly abandoned by “former survivors”. Were there no other ways to subtly present plot details? Or those fish infected by a mysterious bacterium, recognisable by … a greenish glow? Seriously! And that wretched alien laboratory, high technology, forced upon us at the end, completely at odds with the game’s theme (survival in a wild world with limited means), which personally, I had no desire to see (video game B-movie enthusiasts might remember Blood Omen 2, among so many others!).

Of course, these millennial ruins are always sealed by electronic gates, impassable unless one possesses the appropriately coloured key. A key which, by the greatest of miracles, has been left in plain sight in another ruin, a few metres away. So, if in a thousand years you want to visit my pad, and find the door closed, remember to look on the ground at the other end of the hall, I’ll leave my keys there now!
Finally, the arrangement of “biomes” seems a bit too artificial to me: these areas delimited with a cleaver, housing very specific fauna and flora, which change completely and abruptly as soon as one crosses a perfectly straight boundary!

I come to the main grievance: the general lack of ergonomics and counter-intuitive mechanics. I had decided to pursue the adventure from start to finish without any documentation, neither Wiki nor YouTube. It was generally enjoyable, but very laborious at times!

My first difficulty stems from inventory management. There’s never enough space to store the mountains of collected objects, which we nevertheless know we’ll need someday. I had to craft fifteen small “floating” crates (in truth, they stay at the depth where you release them) to store them, and lost an enormous amount of time trying vainly to organise them. Moreover, these small crates drift over time, because I pushed them accidentally. I spent about thirty hours like that, because I didn’t yet know I could establish a base (and I was scared to move away from the starting area, where I could touch bottom). Why not allow us, from the beginning, to craft one large crate, rather than fifteen small ones?

My second difficulty comes from the construction component, which I found messy. I didn’t understand the role of air pipes, for example. I bothered to construct a network over 300 metres to bring air from a pump floating at the surface, all the way to my base, even before building my first room (I must say I had the brilliant idea to build my base at 300 metres depth, because the place was called “recommended habitat”, and I blindly follow recommendations). In the end, I couldn’t connect the end of my pipe network to the building I’d just constructed. I gave up. A bit later, I built my first generator, and was surprised to discover it generated air in addition to electricity. I spent the next hour dismantling 300 metres of titanium pipes (not knowing how to recycle them, I deposited everything on the ground, amidst the coral)…

Subsequently, I built a scanner room: a large sphere bristling with satellite dishes and cameras, whose utility I didn’t grasp. And then it struck me, several dozen hours later: as its name indicated, it was a room. One therefore needed to be inside it to use it! This naturally implied connecting it to an access route, something I wasn’t quick to figure out. When I finally decided to try this contraption, I could visualise the position of “containers” present in the region. However, it wasn’t specified which ones had already been opened and emptied of their contents… My initial question remains: what’s the point?

Ultimately, Subnautica offers a unique atmosphere, a methodical execution (although yielding too easily to stereotypes), and conventional mechanics, sometimes cumbersome. Nevertheless, it will leave me with some powerful memories. Coming from a jaded and hard-to-please player like myself, take this as a hearty recommendation!

More images here, here, and here.

Where to buy it? Steam