Games

I think the reason why the first one was such a great experience for me is that I got it much later after a lot of the issues with the bugs and gameplay were fixed and the story line was completed. I'm glad I did so. I might do the same with that one and wait a year before getting it, if reviews are decent.

Some configuration file tweaks and an m.2 drive had the first one run great for me. Just had a few areas with clipping issues but no real problems. Some QOL mods definitely made it an awesome game, so yeah; it definitely took some work to polish up, but the mystery and story and exploration is something that I think they could pull off again, and the technical side of things....well, they'll surely have a bit bigger employee count and can hire some talent.

Below Zero...

If I was asked to compile the 10 prettiest screenshots from the two games, at least 7 of them are coming from BZ. The deep twisty bridges, the giant anemone cave, the crystal caverns, the...what's the thing you go up inside of? Subnautica really hits you with the beauty early on in the safe shallows, and otherwise goes for "cool" rather than "pretty."

I like both soundtracks. My absolute favorite track comes from Subnautica, which often uses music to establish tension. BZ has an overall nicer soundtrack that has a lot of movements that feel "wondrous," like our character feels amazed at the environment more than anything.

Subnautica's story works perfectly. It's a castaway scenario, and Riley Robinson's goal, from start to finish, never stops being "survive and escape." What working toward that goal entails takes a winding and scenic path, but at no point does your overall motivation stray far from "Survive and escape."

BZ's story belongs in the square hole. Most of the problem is they had written one story, built a lot of the game's assets including several setpieces around the map with that story in mind, and then they threw it away and had to come up with something else. You play as an idiot named Robin Ayou, whose goal of finding out what happened to her sister is a minor sidequest because Robin becomes a sidekick to the real main character, Al-An.

Subnautica could sometimes have issues with draw distance and pop-in. BZ solves this problem by making everything murkier so no matter what you can't see more than a few feet forward.

Subnautica features shallow reefs, flat plains, sloping dunes, abyssal depths, narrow canyons, giant forests, huge caverns, narrow passageways, floating islands, lots of varied terrain that present different challenges and opportunities. BZ is made almost entirely of self-similar confusing twisty turny corridors. The caves below the kelp forests, the twisty bridges, the anemone cave, the icebergs, everywhere on land, there's nowhere that isn't a twisty turny self similar corridor.

The Snowfox feels broken. That whole segment of the game, I'm amazed they shipped it.

One thing that is very noticeable is that the sound/music design. The original designer isn't working at Unknown Worlds anymore after making some very regrettable comments on social media and I'm not expecting him to come back. As a result Below Zer0's sound design was OK but pales in comparison to the amazing atmosphere that was set in the original game. Unless they manage to find a very talented sound designer it might miss the mark again.

Agreed, I loved Below Zero. It was very much a small step forward from Subnautica, and I think people were expecting a bigger step forward. But it was always a glorified DLC for the original. Knowing that, it's extremely enjoyable. I've played it through twice and I do love it in it's own right.

This teaser has me hopefully that Subnautica 2 will be a true sequel. More polished, a bigger improvement on the original. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm gonna choose to be hopeful.

I do agree that the game's story/atmosphere should be designed for singleplayer first, since that's what drew a majority of people to the first game.

However, I think MP could still retain some sense of atmosphere as long as they have a good in game voice chat and keep it proximity based, like in Lethal Company.

It isn't scary at all for your teammate to tell you exactly where they just died, how, call out the leviathan heading your way, then continue with a joke they were making. But having a friendly conversation over the radio cut off by their violent death to horrors unknown could be scary, even if facing the unknown alone is fundamentally scarier.

Yeah I went through a small emotional rollercoaster! it felt so alone when he was running out of oxygen, then we were safe now that we had a friend.

but then we're both still way in the deep

I hope they use the Grounded formula for multiplayer and bases, that was super well integrated!

That was the best thing to have missing. The isolation made the game.

• edit: rockpapershotgun had more info. There's going to be solitary play mode/story, but also an up to 4 player co-op.

The description and comments on the video 100% confirm multiplayer. Honestly I'd be excited for the game either way, but I have a lot of fun playing crafting/survival games with friends so it's appreciated.

The truck was nice, but it felt boring by comparison. It didn't have that extra oomph that made the cyclops so exciting

fair enough