I don’t like sharks, I hate alien sharks.

Subnautica is a open world early access game that takes place on a alien ocean world. Now as a person who is terrified of the ocean I felt like it was my duty to get over this fear, now i hate sharks. And when a big shark like looking alien thing shrieks and then swims at you, you shit yourself. I hate this game, it’s evil and I love it. Note, I’m more terrified of the ocean even more now.

You start off in the escape pod of the Aurora which was your ship that crashed into this alien world. You have to gather resources to craft items, standard survival. But the theme is so unique that it doesn’t feel like a standard survival game. You have the standard food and water to keep an eye on but the big killer is the oxygen, you must build more O2 tanks if you want to swim for longer and if you go to deep without keeping an eye on your O2 meter you’ll drown. There are different modes that you can play to suit you; Survival which is normal survival game rules with hunger and thirst. There is Freedom mode which is survival without hunger and thirst, there is Hardcore which is the 1 life permadeath mode and there is Creative mode which is invincible, pure building.

Subnautica compares more to Minecraft then a normal survival game. You can scan items in the world to learn more recipes  and you start off knowing only the basics. The base building is well done and looks really nice and it feels really good to make an underwater base that works so well. I do enjoy the exploration as this is an alien planet and anything can be anywhere. You are literally exploring the unknown.

I did have a break from this piece to play a lot more of Subnautica and now that I’ve come back to it I must say that late game stuff is really fun, I have a really big underwater base which took really long to get working without having to go back to my escape pod. The different aliens that are in Subnautica are quite terrifying and they can cause quite the jump scare if your not prepared for them to come at you. And it isn’t pleasant.

In conclusion I am enjoying Subnautica and the core gameplay is really good, it is probably one of the best survival games I’ve played , mostly due to it’s unique theme and setting.