But if I’m going to spend forty hours in a game I want to have a reason that goes beyond “you can build a nice house for yourself under the sea.” That’s great and all, but that’s a lot of in-game labour for something that’s only permanent until I stop playing.Īs far as the sandbox goes, it is rich and varied and to the developer’s great credit, any challenge that the game throws at you will have multiple solutions. They just wanted to give you a sandbox to play around with. Any time there is some effort at explicit storytelling, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s an inconvenience to the developers. You’re in this environment to investigate why a bunch of explorers have disappeared, and there are evil corporations and stuff involved. The narrative elements don’t really do anything. And yet, while the emergent narrative elements are there, without the explicit story these games also feel too aimless to really hold my attention. Because there’s so much focus placed on routine (collecting materials, making sure you’ve got food and water, crafting the exponentially expanding range of objects), any efforts at telling a story are often pushed back and delivered in such a piecemeal fashion that pacing is shot. The other big issue I have with survival games like Subnautica is that they (at least all the ones I’ve played) really struggle with giving the adventure context. I know others love these things, but no, it’s not for me.
#SUBNAUTICA SWITCH FREE#
It’s the kind of place I actually wouldn’t mind living in myself – being under the sea and free of people and all – but the sheer busy work to gather everything up is not my idea of a good time. The bulk of and survival title’s loop is “collect X of resource Y to craft Z which will help you explore further, making it easier to collect resource A and look! Here’s blueprints B, C, and D that you can craft once you’ve got enough A.” You start out with a tiny pod, storage box and crafting bench being your entire world, but as you collect more resources and start crafting materials, you end up making a pretty nice little home for yourself. On the other hand… lord are survival games exhausting. The developers have delivered exactly what they were looking to with this game, and that’s laudable. The environment itself is the lead character and much of the game’s emergent narrative-heavy experience is in interacting with it and learning about it. Not everything is friendly and most areas in the world are anything but safe, but every new sight and creature is fascinatingly exotic, and there’s a strong sense of place and being to Subnautica’s world. As far as the good is concerned, Sabnautica: Below Zero offers an ethereal exploration experience, with exotic worlds to explore (both above and below the ocean), and a true sense of wonder as you do so.
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