Subnautica

Subnautica is a computer game of Survival-game genre, developed by US studio Unknown Worlds Entertainment . In the pure single-player title, the player slips into the role of a character who crashes with his spaceship on a planet that is largely covered by water.

The game was first released on Steam in December 2014 as part of Valve's Early Access program , followed by the Game Preview for Xbox One in 2016 . The full version was finally released in January 2018, initially for PC, also on Steam. On December 4, 2018, the simultaneous release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One followed.

In August 2018, the first sequel was announced with Subnautica: Below Zero .

action

In the 22nd century, humanity began to explore and colonize space with the help of large spaceships. One of these ships is the " Aurora ", which in the border regions of known space for " Ariadne - arm " was sent to there a Phasentor to build and (without the knowledge of most of the crew) for a lost ship, the "Degasi" to search. However, due to an energy impulse of unknown origin, the aurora crashes at its destination on the water planet 4546B. Several crew members can flee in escape pods before the impact. The player takes the role of one of these members, which save himself and alone in "Lifepod 5" so that waterways can.

The player is now confronted with two main tasks: staying alive and finding a way to escape from the planet. The plot is told without elaborate staging (e.g. through cutscenes ) in the form of emergency calls, text messages on PDAs and environmental storytelling . The aim is to guide the player in the approximate direction, but without significantly restricting playful freedom by telling the story that is too tight. You slowly get to the fate of the other Aurora crew members and the Degasi, the reason for the crash and the past of the planet.

Game mechanics

Subnautica has typical basic elements of the survival game genre: The player starts with very little equipment and resources - food and drinking water are essential for survival. Since the part of the planet around the crash site that can be explored by the player from the first person perspective is almost entirely covered by salt water, the vital resources must be sought under the surface of the water. This also makes the character's available oxygen an ever-present problem.

The open underwater world to be explored for resources and an escape route is divided into different zones ( biomes ). These differ not only on the basis of their appearance, their flora and fauna as well as the risk potential from them, but also on the resources to be found and the depth of the seabed (and thus also the water pressure ). In addition, the exploration can be made difficult by poor visibility, volcanic activity and radiation . In order to penetrate deeper and more dangerous regions of the ocean, the player is therefore dependent on better equipment, which he can create himself using construction plans that can be found. This ranges from more resilient diving suits , higher capacity oxygen bottles , a laser cutter for exploring wreckage of the Aurora to a research submarine or an exoskeleton . In addition, there is the possibility of building your own underwater bases with the help of individual segments. These not only offer the player the opportunity to store materials, but also equipment such as B. to build water filter machines (for drinking water), bioreactors to generate electricity or upgrade stations for equipment. Most of these segments and machines must also be activated beforehand using the construction plans found.

Before starting a new game, Subnautica offers four game modes or levels of difficulty:

Survival - the "standard" mode; Food, drinking water and oxygen are essential for survival, the player can die
Hardcore - same conditions as in "Survival", but with permadeath ( if the player dies, the game ends)
Free play - need for food and drinking water are deactivated, otherwise the same conditions as in "Survival"
Creative - all survival aspects and the story are deactivated, and the player cannot die

According to the developer studio, it was very important not to include any deadly weapons in the game. In addition to a diving knife (which is primarily used as a tool), there are only various defensive systems such as torpedoes , which temporarily distort gravity, or the perimeter defense system, in order to have a chance to survive direct confrontations with a Leviathan . This design decision had a real background: The development of Subnautica started around the same time as the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School . This and similar incidents ultimately led Game Director Charlie Cleveland to renounce direct violence. Although he doesn't believe in the connection between real and virtual violence, he still wanted to show in Subnautica that problems can also be solved in a creative and non-violent way.

development

Developer Unknown Worlds, up to this point mainly known for the two Natural Selection games, announced Subnautica on December 15, 2013 with an introductory video. At this point in time, development work had been going on for about a year. In contrast to Natural Selection 2 , the decision was made not to use the in-house Spark engine as the technical framework, but rather to license the Unity engine.

Subnautica was first published on December 16, 2014 in the Early Access program of the digital distribution platform Steam for Windows PCs at a price of 15 euros. According to the studio's plans at the time, the game should “probably stay in Early Access until the end of 2015, maybe longer”. This was followed by a version for Mac OS X on Steam in June 2015 and on May 17, 2016 the game preview version for the Xbox One in the Microsoft Store at a price of just under 20 euros.

Only a good three years after the early access start, Subnautica finally went into the release version on January 23, 2018, initially exclusively on Steam at a price of just under 23 euros. The full release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One followed on December 4, 2018.

Subnautica was developed with VR support and can be played on the PC with an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive . The PlayStation 4 version, on the other hand, did not offer any support for PlayStation VR at the time of release . According to the developer, a later implementation is unlikely.

Extensions

At the end of August 2018, the first expansion was announced with Subnautica: Below Zero . Below Zero was initially also released as an early access version on Steam, Epic Games and Discord, the release of version 1.0 is expected in the course of 2020. The expansion is stand-alone , so you don't need to own the main game.

The plot of Below Zero is set after the events of the main game. This time the player ends up on a different part of the planet 4546B, on which, however, temperatures are well below zero. Thus, in addition to the previously known survival elements, there is also the fight against temperatures. The add-on should also rely on already known mechanics and expand them with new ones.

reception

The release version for the PC from Subnautica received almost exclusively good to very good reviews and ratings from the special interest press. The early access phase was also repeatedly praised as being quite long, but overall “exemplary”.

“Subnautica is the first survival game that I really love because not only is the idea great, but the execution is great too. Exploring the beautiful ocean, collecting resources and improving my equipment interlock like perfectly oiled gears. The developers have woven a nice story around it. It develops very slowly, but keeps my curiosity flaring up and gives the open game a certain structure. "

- Johannes Rohe : GameStar

“Finding answers and exploring new areas is an incentive. Especially because there is always something new to discover in the fantastically crafted world. The game also made me feel like a helpless diver in many moments. I can still remember how frozen I was when I met my first Leviathan - the largest species on the planet. Just unbelievable!"

- Marco Mainz : GIGA Games

“As I got used to problems like the laborious procurement of drinking water, the wooden editor or the graphic layout, the story of the mysterious crash on a hostile planet pulled me more and more under its spell. Some dives into the idyllic, glowing alien world are so fascinating that I even held my breath in front of the monitor. The further you venture into the varied, increasingly bizarre designed shallows, the deeper you get to the bottom of the causes of the accidents. "

- Jan Wöbbeking : 4Players

On the other hand, an incident shortly after the publication caused a somewhat negative mood. Developer Unknown Worlds, for example, dismissed sound designer Simon Chylinski because he had made derogatory comments via Twitter about immigrants and the possibility of a female game character in Subnautica. According to Game Director Charlie Cleveland, these statements contradict the values of the company, which is why they felt compelled to take this step. In some cases, this also led to a devaluation of Subnautica by various players on the Steam distribution platform on the grounds that the studio restricted the freedom of expression of its employees.