izigame.me

I love Subnautica. I love the hell out of Subnautica.
But as I wrapped up my final session of Subnautica: Below Zero and watched the credits, I just didn't feel like it gave anywhere near the same energy and thrill the original game did. I've read many reviews saying that while it wasn't as good as the original game, it was still good. And for the first few hours, I'd agree with that statement. But progressing through and putting more time in, it felt like an entirely different game.
Let's start with the land exploration. The original Subnautica had a bit of exploration out of the sea - it was a nice change of scenery from the underwater portions, but a miniscule part of the player's overall journey. Below Zero implements its 'temperature' mechanic this way. Being on land will tick away at a temperature gauge, and if it drops to zero, you die of hypothermia. It's understandable to have a mechanic related to heat in this game, but here's the kicker - there's A LOT of land to traverse. I have some qualms about the temperature mechanic itself but what's so irritating is that the land segments seem to overstay their welcome long before you're finished with them. If you built the Prawn Suit for these sections, you're all good, these segments can be traversed without much worry of temperature or injury. But if you're a player like me and traverse these areas without one, the cracks begin to show in the land-based traversal. Your character gets hung up on multiple things, whether they be tiny ankle-high obstacles, scattered materials, or perhaps most confounding, elevation changes. I found myself on multiple occasions leaping around trying to find the spot that would allow me to progress, and this was especially frustrating when I was simply trying to climb a snowy hill or walk towards a vent to warm myself back up. This is interspersed with multiple PDA warnings that hazard 'dangerous weather' and to 'seek shelter'. Thing is, dangerous weather almost seems to be the standard - I'd hear one of these warnings every few minutes when navigating on foot and it made it irritating to navigate the areas where shelter wasn't an option or I'd just left a safe space, although the weather changes themselves didn't seem to alter much. Walking isn't this game's strong suit and as I navigated these areas I found myself desperately wishing to be back in the water.
And while I thrived in Below Zero's initial routine, I found that being in the water here wasn't what it was in the past. Environments seem to have no semblance of connecting with one another - I navigated from a lush green environment full of seaweed and fish to a barren landscape devoid of life, then continued on to find another flourishing landscape full of lilypads and moss. It's even worse in the late-game areas - what awaits you below are long mazes cramped full of environmental hazards that damage vehicles and lend no semblance of where you are going. Getting lost almost seemed to be part of the game at this point - there are multiple areas that appear to be ways to climb upwards or descend downwards that instead lead the player into a dent in the landscape instead of a tunnel. Why make navigating these areas so irritating to accomplish and so dull to be in when the endgame areas from the last game like the Lost River and the Lava Zone were so thrilling to find and explore?
This frustration is compounded by one creature- the Shadow Leviathan. These pricks are found weaving through the tight narrow areas deep under the water's surface, and they take every opportunity to engage the player. Once it makes visual contact, it lets out a roar and weaving and diving through the environment or trying to find a hiding spot is useless at that point - it will find you and it will engage you. They lock you in a grapple animation if you're in a vehicle, and you have to tediously wait as it takes its time munching on whatever you're piloting until it gets bored and spits it out in an entirely random direction. What's worse, by the time you repair your vehicle or heal up and point towards the direction you were initially headed, you could very well get spotted and have to go through the same process all over again. I spent 30 minutes and 2 batteries on an endzone run making my way to where I needed to go between repairing my Seatruck and moving a few feet before it stuck me into yet another attack animation. Remember the Reaper Leviathan animation from the first game? It was horrifying, specifically because I remember it locking my Seamoth in its maw. From what I recall this happened only once to me but it established it as a major threat, and even though it never happened again I knew to steer clear of the Reapers. And the other threats, like the Ghost Leviathans, had no animations that I experienced at all - they'd glide by you mouth agape and deal their damage in passing, establishing them as dangerous without having to push the concept in your face. Instead, this creature comes out annoying and tedious to deal with after 10 minutes in the landscape they occupy because you can expect to get grappled frequently - AND THEY'RE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID. The fact that this enemy takes so much time away from the player and insists on being so aggressive pulls a lot of the wonder away from exploring the late-game environments since the longer you spend down there the better chance you have of getting attacked again.
I couldn't complete a review without bringing up the game's lack of direction, either. When you start, the game highlights a few areas of importance and... that's basically it, that's all the guidance you get. From a few highlighted areas on your map, you have to navigate without so much as a map to help guide you to where you're supposed to be going. I don't need handholding, I managed to get through the original game just fine, but in some of the objectives like finding Al-An's body pieces you are given such little direction on where to go you may not know how to progress. I resorted to using a light walkthrough with little guiding hints instead of outright step-by-step directions and I cannot emphasize how much it made the experience more enjoyable simply because it finally felt like I knew what I was doing again. But that job shouldn't fall on fans - if the game is done right, a walkthrough shouldn't be needed at all.
There are so many other things I could comment on - the reduced vehicle count (the Cyclops and Seamoth are removed, replaced with the Seatruck), the multiple useless blueprints (the pathfinder tool, the repulsion cannon, the thumper and multiple vehicle upgrades all felt like more trouble than they were worth investing in), stockpiling of materials that meant nothing (I had over 10 ion cubes stored in my locker since I found only one blueprint that utilized them in any meaningful way), lack of direction on where to find different materials (I didn't know where to find root pustules, for example), one of the late-game materials being nigh-invisible compared to the rest of the environment... (looking at you, Nickel - and yes, I used the mineral detector) I won't deny that I had fun playing Subnautica: Below Zero, but I would be doing a disservice if I didn't also say that by the very end I was also dying in frustration to complete the game and finish it so I could uninstall it. If you're looking for more Subnautica, I recommend modding the original with content the fans have released instead of trying to relive it playing this, as by the end all I could feel was relief that I could finally stop exploring this game centered on the concept of exploration.