izigame.me

This review is spoiler-free.
I'm a big fan of the original Subnautica, but I'd heard a lot of people say Below Zero 'isn't as good' so I was hesitant. I'm discerning about what games I choose to buy and spend my time playing. I obviously ended up getting it though and I just finished a very 'no rush' playthrough. If you're in a similar position to where I was, this is the review for you.
First, where I'm coming from. My favorite part of Subnautica was the unique balance of open-world exploration, self-paced storytelling, and plain, primal terror (not to be confused with horror). I also found the plot interesting and it held my attention, and I only found it more intriguing and believable for the slowness with which you discover details and the lack of direction each discovery left you with as to where you go next, and the incompleteness of what you learn. And, I loved the graphics and environment - the graphics are not very technically impressive, but the developers made beautiful, compelling things with what they had, and that is worth infinitely more than any amount of polygons on a screen or pixels in a texture.
From the start, Below Zero is not set up the same way at all, and that's totally fine. It doesn't come even close to feeling linear, and it doesn't hold your hand per se, but it starts you off knowing why you are here and with some idea of where to go. You are given most of what you need to start digging into the plot's mysteries fairly early on in the game, in terms of both technology and story information, and it falls to you to use those things to explore and connect the dots. It does present its story in a similar way though: most of what you get comes as logs and wrecks, and you piece it together yourself.
My only plot-related complaint would be that the story played up the dystopian transgovernmental corporation that is Alterra a little bit too much, to the point of being a bit caricaturesque at a couple points, only to have Alterra just disappear which I think is extremely out of character for an organization in their position (I can't say more without spoiling anything). It's not really that big a deal and I'm probably giving it more text than it's worth, but you notice it after you stop playing and you you contemplate the events of the game, and it does break up the story just a little bit.
Now, the progression is one area where the original Subnautica was perhaps flawless: the equipment you 'unlock', the new environments you push into, and the new threats you face are all balanced spectacularly. Below Zero definitely comes up short. A huge part of the reason - you knew this was coming - is the Seatruck. I don't think a comparison to the Cyclops is valid so I won't try to force one, but the Seamoth is fair game. And I think the early game Seatruck compares fine to the Seamoth in practice; slap a storage module on the back just like you stuck hardcases to the side of your Seamoth, and you're good to go explore areas you would have struggled to reach before (or did struggle but did it anyway, now you can go back). As you go, you discover upgrades and new modules that add functionality to the Seatruck... in theory. The implementation just isn't great. Give it enough modules and upgrades that hauling a Prawn suit along and trying to use it as a roving base makes any real sense, and it turns into an awkward balance of zippy but clunky, the poor storage capacity is simply frustrating, and the Prawn never feels really necessary. You can use it that way, and you probably will, but it never turns into anything that makes it feel more useful or powerful or rewarding than it did early in the game. It just ends up getting old and being mildly annoying. It probably seems like I'm harping on this vehicle, but Below Zero is built with the Seatruck as a core part of its gameplay, and for something that essential, it isn't as well done as I'd hope.
Then there are the bugs. The original Subnautica had a few - I'm sure you've been trapped in a Prawn suit, or beached your Seamoth as a means of parking and come back to find it 10m under the ground. But Below Zero is riddled with minor graphical bugs that let you see through ledges and see certain things from absurd distances and cause weird and very noticeable lighting issues. It also has quite a few spots you can accidentally trap yourself on terrain geometry and essentially softlock the game, and that even happens in areas that are important to the plot in places you are likely to go through (often you can save yourself by looking down and placing a light stick, if you keep one on you like I do). And there's one particular mean leviathan in one particular area that has a nasty habit of getting out of bounds and then coming at you through the ground or ceiling once or twice before getting back in bounds and on its normal path, which is stupefyingly scary but also extremely immersion-breaking and frustrating. The result of all this is a game that feels unpolished... not unfinished, just unpolished.
And on a similar note, Below Zero doesn't feel quite as fleshed-out as the original either. There were something like three dozen species of plants you could harvest in Subnautica, just plants, and most of them had absolutely no practical use whatsoever. And there were bunches of little pieces of useless equipment and glass containers and bags and all kinds of other things lying around you could pick up and keep like some kind of sea/space raccoon. All this let you decorate your base and make it feel more like home using the things you found in the world. Below Zero has tons of neat-looking plants and all kinds of equipment to give depth to the biomes and locations you find, but it only lets you have what is useful so you can't bring that depth home. All it adds in return is a bunch of posters and picture frames, and a bunch of options for bedspreads and a faux wooden desk in the habitat builder. This isn't a problem per se, but let's face it, we all enjoyed the crap out of sprucing up our seabases and turning them into a sort of home beyond just a place to store materials and fabricate components, and Below Zero takes an important part of that away which leaves it feeling disproportionately spartan.
Plus, probably more importantly, there's no wondering what you might want to collect in your travels; if you can pick it up or harvest it, you should keep it around, especially if it isn't edible. Below Zero also has quite a few large plants and/or plant-like things you can't even scan, where that was unusual in the original, so that's a bit weird too, and it becomes more frequent and more noticeable in the 2-3 late game areas which is... *narrows eyes*... interesting.
I realize I just wrote a short essay criticizing Below Zero's issues and shortcomings, but that's because I think it's good enough to be worth criticizing. Most of my gripes are fairly minor, and most are probably fixable via updates.
Below Zero also does some very important things right. It gives us a whole new world of unique and beautiful environments to explore and ecosystems to see, complete with the occasional moment of terror as the world reminds you that you are small and fragile and there are places you do not belong. It gives a story with interesting, flawed, and dynamic main characters, and a compelling overall arc that the original doesn't compete with. I enjoyed this game and I am glad I played it.
Bottom line here. If you enjoyed Subnautica and you want more, Below Zero will probably scratch that itch quite nicely. Frankly, I don't think it's quite as good as the original, but it's not too far off.
If you haven't played the original because you are daunted by the 'wander aimlessly' premise, Below Zero doesn't do that for the most part so you should be fine, and it will kind of teach you how to survive the original game too. Otherwise, I'd probably recommend you play the original first and get this only if you do like it.