The full Subnautica experience was finally released on Jan. 23, available to PC, XBox One, and PS4 systems. The game has been in Early Access for over two years and was worth the wait, including graphic changes, new gameplay elements, and a wider expansion of the already popular survival game. Subnautica was a very unsupported game until YouTube Let’s Players Jacksepticeye and Markiplier made videos of them playing the game for their viewers. Ever since then, the game gained many supporters, and now we have Subnautica in it’s sea loving glory.
The gameplay of Subnautica is simple, players collect resources to build better tools and a better base in order to survive on a dangerous alien planet. But an interesting element is that 90 percent of the game is underwater. Many survival games have yet to be mainly underwater, and Subnautica does this to its fullest extent. In the game, there are four options of gameplay: Survival, Freedom, Hardcore, and Creative. Survival is the regular play-style, having players constantly watch their heath, hunger, oxygen, and thirst for the duration of the game. Freedom gameplay is Survival without having to worry about hunger or thirst. Hardcore gameplay is Survival but the player has only one life, and no alerts when oxygen is low. Lastly is Creative, which is just a mode where players don’t have to worry about anything and can build whatever that’s available in the game.
The story of Subnautica starts off with you, the player, rushing into an escape pod from the Aurora which is about to crash into some alien planet. After a rough ride onto the alien planet itself, you wake up from slight head trauma to your pod on fire. After learning the basic controls through trying to put out the fire, you leave your pod to see the crashed Aurora and your new world to explore, gather materials, and try to figure out a way to get off of this planet. Throughout the game, you would get little notifications from the radio in your pod (or base if you build a radio in there), these notifications varies from pre-recorded distress messages from other escape pods to cryptic messages from the unknown. After a while, you begin to start gaining an alien disease that acts as the biggest obstacle. In order for you to leave the planet, you have to cure yourself from the disease. Why do you have to cure the disease? This alien planet has been in quarantine for this disease, and an alien base will shoot down anything that tries to enter or leave on sight.
Visually, the game is absolutely gorgeous. So much time and effort was made in making the game look amazing. The water animation, the fact that players can see a planet so close to them is breathtaking, even the cave systems are riddled with luminescent flora. Everywhere you look there will be something that catches your eye, be it some kind of sea alien monster or just a new landscape that leads to more exploration.
Subnautica is a wonderful survival game, filled with hours of enjoyment to be had. This is an absolute recommendation to anyone that enjoys these types of games, or just want to experience something new.
Julia Peralta // Graphics Dept.
