Sink or Swim?? (Subnautica)

Game: Subnautica
Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, macOS
Played On: Xbox One
Price: £23.99
Available on Xbox Game Pass: Yes

Today I’m going to be writing a review on Subnautica, a 2018 release from Unknown World Entertainment. It was released on PC early in 2018 coming to consoles late in the same year. I will be reviewing the Xbox version of this game which understandably doesn’t run as smooth as it would on PC so I will be baring that in mind as I write this. So enough of the admin intro and let’s get into this one. As always, some minor spoilers ahead.

I will say I am still using a base Xbox One so my loading time into the game can only be described as painful, I know I should really update my Xbox but anyone using slightly older hardware will have slow loading screens, but that is the case on a lot of games. But once into it we get the premise of the game. You are crew of the Spaceship Aurora which has crash landed on ‘planet 4546B’ (catchy name). You come too on your life pod and that’s it, that’s all we know, we get an automated message saying you’re alive get a new objective and it’s time to go swimming.

You go for your first dive and one thing is immediately obvious, this game is stunning, I mean incredibly stunning, even on my basic console this game take your breath away, the colours, the vibrancy is breathtaking. You are on an alien planet and all of a sudden you realise that this underwater world is entirely yours to explore. I can say personally I haven’t felt that excited being thrown into an unknown since first loading up Minecraft. It’s that sense of the unknown, always knowing you’re not quite safe and not quite sure what to expect.

The game can feel a bit overwhelming at times. There are a few objectives but you have to really look for them and they’re not the easiest to find. And by that I mean actually knowing what you’re meant to do. But you will get the hang of it. The other difficult thing to find is the actual story of the game, you might be forgiven to thinking like Minecraft there is no real storyline but their very much is, I’ll save you some time and say everything you need is hidden in your inventory menu. Recipes, story, everything is in a separate tab.

Like most survival games it does get easier the longer you play. To begin with it is a but frustrating, you are underwater and obviously need air, the only way to begin with is to surface. This can get frustrating, especially when gathering supplies as that’s very RNG and you have a very limited amount of air so to begin with the game was very repetitive.

I know it sounds like I’m very down on this game but I promise I’m not, to begin with it all did feel like I wouldn’t get it and I wasn’t invested enough but after my first time playing I’d already given 8 hours of my life to this game, it very much has the ‘oh I’ll quickly grab that’ feeling about it, we’ve all had it in the open world games, how we’ll grab one more thing and it’s suddenly an hour later. And once a few things start clicking together the game is hugely enjoyable.

I will say it gave me an impetus to learn how the game works, what things go together to craft properly so I will admit I was googling quite heavily, so if this frustrates you and you don’t like having to research his a game works, then sadly this won’t be a game for you. I’d say I’m about a third of the way through the story and am still unsure how to make my own shelters work (I am an idiot so I’m sure it’s very simple) but all this game does is make me want to know how to make it work rather than giving up entirely.

I will say as I mentioned before I use older hardware with my Xbox One and at times it struggles to keep up so I have dropped frames and had a few glitches, I can forgive this as this is my fault for not updating. I will say however this is very obviously a PC port, you can tell how much easier this game would be with a mouse over the controller and at times it has taken me a decent amount of repositioning to make something work so I have to take a point away from it for that.

What Subnautica does so well is it’s sense of achievement and discovery. It is a very validating feeling to figure out how some thing works and to start using it. You feel you’ve really earned your in game life becoming a little easier. And I still remember the first time I stepped foot on dry land, I haven’t felt wonderment like that in a game for a while, the difference in colours were spectacular and it simply added another layer to an already amazing game.

So Subnautica all in all is a very enjoyable game, is it the new Minecraft? Not even close. But it’s not meant to be. Yes I can see why every open world game with crafting is compared to Minecraft but I feel there are so many games now in this genre (7 Days to Die, Astroneer) it probably is time to stop. To me if we have to compare it to any of these open world games it’s nearer to Ark than anything but that is just my opinion. You know what? I’ll do another post about these kind of comparisons down the line. Back to this game.

Simply it’s very enjoyable, it’s fun and if you are looking for something to really really escape into then this really could be the game for you. I can’t ignore to controls and handling as it does effect the gameplay but while this is on Game Pass it’s definitely worth grabbing, even if it drops to under £20 it’s worth picking up as you’ll get your hours back easily.

Final Score: 7.5/10

As always leave a comment if you’ve played this game and have a different opinion or find me on Twitter @peterlinsdell to be always up to date with blog releases.