The ocean is a powerful and vital part of our planet. Yet even with the natural world being mapped and ‘Googled’ more every day, the deep blue still shrouds itself away from our prying eyes. Thanks to a terrifying experience as a younger fellow I have a healthy fear of the deep ocean and the creatures that dwell beneath the surface. It turns out that crash landing on a planet covered almost entirely of water was always going to aggravate my Thalassophobia. Descending into the deepest areas of the original game caused me to experience fear like I’d never felt in a game before as being trapped underwater is literally my worst nightmare. Yet the utterly captivating game Unknown Worlds Entertainment created is what kept me going and in the end, this was one of the most exhilarating gaming experiences of my life. So let’s see how the next game in the series fairs, but first please enjoy a short story (or skip to the main review below.)

It had been a long week. Surviving an orbital descent gone wrong had seemingly just been the start of my troubles. After narrowly avoiding frostbite the bracing ocean had been the lesser of two evils. With chunks of hail the size of footballs seeing me off I had made my way to the Life Pod and to my relief the fabricator was still functioning. That had been a week ago and since then I had managed to use it to craft some basic survival tools and then knock together a working base of operations. While in this relative safety I’d still been aware of a shadow moving just out of sight in the distant gloom.

This was the day we would make a break for it as the editable fish seemed to be getting wise and had started avoided my refuge. A Seatruck would get me to the radar station, but I still needed one more piece of the blueprint from that deep ravine below my feet. With a newly acquired rebreather, I would now be able to reach what I needed and hopefully avoid whatever had been making those spine-tingling roars. As I sank through the narrow gap in the rock I could see a faint glow below and for a second I remember the scene in Abyss when Bud discovers an alien city. Finally, the channel opened up to reveal a colossal cave with many smaller tunnels leading off towards darkness. I was just about to set up a beacon when a roar from my right caused me to panic and I instinctively swam up, sporting one of those stupid faces you pull when you drop something: then blackness. 

I awoke with stabbing pain on my temple and a salty taste in my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue when I rammed my head into a piece of rock jutting out from the cave wall. I should be dead, but by a sheer miracle, I’d floated down and landed next to one of those glowing plants that could feed my suit with O2. I slowly made my way up again and to my relief, there was the fragment I so desperately needed. With a quick scan, I had what I needed to fabricate my escape from this watery nightmare. The next few seconds would pass in agonising horror as I turned to see the biggest creature Id ever come across. This grey devil looked like a cross between a megalodon and a giant squid as it silently glided towards me, mouth opening wide exposing a sea of razor-sharp teeth. For the longest second I couldn’t move, paralysed with sheer terror but then some primal urge to survive kicked in and my limbs spluttered into action.  

Up and up I swam but it was no good, my legs would be in the mouth of my pursuer way before I reached the narrow rock corridor above. It was in accepting my fate that suddenly I remembered, my Air Bladder. I pulled the cord and suddenly I was unceremoniously yanked upwards with all the grace of a drowning cat. With my sudden acceleration the gigantic beast had instead eaten rock as it crashing to the cave wall where a few seconds before its rubbery meal had been floundering. A deafening roar followed but I was now more concerned with navigating the channel above me. Like a human-sized pinball I bounced off razor-sharp rock and coral but to my relief emerged near my base, my new friend seemingly content to accept defeat for now. As I said, it had been a long week.

Into the Breach Once More

The original Subnautica was an absolute triumph and a masterclass in how to make a game using early access. It was made available at a very early stage and I remember at the time many of the features and assets were in a state of flux. However, after watching the team at Unknown Worlds Entertainment bang the framework into shape, seeing the story layered over the top was that final piece that made it a classic. Subnautica went on to become a massive success and the developers gained a lot of respect through the industry. Subnautica is probably one of my favourite games of all time as it was not only a fascinating survival romp but challenging on a much more personal level. I was over the moon then, to learn that Unknown Worlds had decided to start work on another game based on the same planet. 

Subnautica Below Zero takes place a year after the events of the first game with our brand new protagonist Robin. We join this plucky young scientist as she is forced to descend from orbit within a meteor shower in search of her lost sister. Unfortunately, the landing leaves a lot to be desired and she is left exposed on an ice sheet minutes from hypothermia. Obviously, this leaves you with only one real choice and once again; it’s into the breach we go. Fortunately, an Emergency Life Pod came down with you and like the first game, it is your starting point on a journey to the deepest depths of this foreboding ocean. For those who haven’t played the first title, this is a survival game where you will spend the majority of your time submerged in the ocean. This time around there are more opportunities to get some fresh air but more on that later. This ocean scape is vast and filled with life that is both passive and aggressive.

There are also resources abound from raw minerals to aquatic plants that can be exploited for various compounds. The fabricator is the core device that makes survival possible as it can break items down on an atomic level while reorganising matter into more useful arrangements. Quartz will form glass, copper will help you craft wire and so on. It can even cook the fish you catch (the small ones at least) and extract small amounts of drinkable water. It might seem daunting at first but once you get the basics the learning curve is fairly tame. 

Soon you will have made an Aqualung, a survival knife and a pair of flippers. The starting biome is relatively shallow and with very little that can kill you, apart from drowning yourself of course. Getting deeper for longer will be your initial goal and as you tool around testing your limits the game will start to feed you story bites with locations attached. I won’t speak much about the story for the sake of spoilers, but I will say I found the acting to be good and the main narrative well delivered. Jaye Griffiths does a great job with the voice acting for Robin and I hope we see this character appear in future games.

The Pork Chop Express

For the majority of players, the first major milestone is crafting the Seatruck (via the mobile vehicle bay), a self constrained submersible that gives you a point of relative safety when diving down to deeper areas. What is really cool about the Seatruck is that as you progress through the game other modules can be built and bolted onto the main unit. Eventually, this craft can become a home away from home offering many of the features a fully working base can manage. As you would expect, the more modules you add the slower the overall speed will be but these can be jigged around at any time. This craft is therefore a very diverse replacement to the Seamoth and Cyclops, which I suspect some fans won’t be happy about. I however think the Seatruck is fantastic fun, works really well and offers you a vehicular lego set of possibilities.

The Prawn Suit makes a welcome return for those deep and more environmentally challenging areas of the game. The Prawn Suit can be fitted with various arms such as a drill to mine larger resource nodes or my favourite; the grappling hook. I might have even drilled a Reaper to death in the prior game but that’s another story. The Prawn Suit can be attached to the back of the Seatruck which makes this dynamic duo perfect for exploring the deeper areas of the ocean floor. The Seatruck, while awesome, does also seem to be in fitting with the smaller play area and I can see that the Cyclops would have felt like overkill.

Fish Out of Water

In the first game, you could occasionally leave the water to explore a few key locations. While this was an interesting aspect of the progression (and gained you a few vital blueprints) walking around in Subnautica always felt clunky and poorly implemented. In Below Zero there is a greater need to explore on foot and unfortunately, this is still one of the weaker parts of the game. The lack of drowning is immediately replaced with the prospect of freezing to death and so you must seek various ways to keep your core temperature up. I love the plants that heat you as you walk past them and that you can even take a thermos of hot coffee for emergencies. With a whole glacial ice sheet to explore the developers have added another new vehicle called the Snow Fox. I like the idea of this nippy little hovercraft but it drives like a pig in a rodeo. 

There are other threats roaming (or digging) around this freezing peninsula (aside from turning into a popsicle) which offer a decent amount of challenge. I will say the snow worms continually knocking you off the snow fox regardless of distance gets very old very fast so I hope they work on this. I did absolutely love the new Spy Penguins that you can craft, which are essentially radio-controlled vehicles. You can use these to pinch hair from the local beasts (for a cold suit) or even access smaller caves for hidden resources. There is a terrifying secret waiting in the ice which still gives me shivers just thinking about it. I think overall I’m glad the developers are trying to expand the Subnautica experience but if they do make another game, I personally would focus more on underwater exploration.

Tools of the Trade

One of the first tools you will gain access to is the scanner, which as the name might suggest lets you swim around scanning things to your heart’s content. Life forms, minerals and other peoples technology are all able to be probed with the latter then becoming available for you to build yourself. Once you’ve found (and scanned) a multi-purpose room and its various components such as a hatch, you will be free to start setting up your very own underwater domicile. When in the shallows you can power these structures by placing solar panels but as you go further down the lack of light penetrating the depths will force you to use less obvious methods.

Scanning is a big part of the game and any time you see something new you should always give it a once over with your Tricorder wannabe. In addition to single scans, you will also need to seek out fragments that are located in the various biomes of the world. Once you have scanned enough of these fragments you then gain the full blueprint for production. Aside from critical items that progress the game, the devs have been having fun adding a whole range of extras such as showers, beds and various decorative options. I love that some of these are even functional, such as the coffee machine allowing you to fill a thermos for those cold stints on the ice sheets.

Water World

So like the first game there are various biomes to explore and each one has its own look, resources and structure. The most obvious difference I can see between the two games is the playable area is quite a bit smaller in Below Zero. The depths you can get to, while very deep, are also second to the first game. While on paper this is disappointing I will say the developers have used the space much more effectively. Biomes now mesh together in a far more natural way and there also seems to be hidden caves everywhere. 

This has now given the mapping tool on the sea-glide new purpose in order to navigate the maze-like tunnels that tantalise you with rewards and trick you into death. There is also the marker tool if you do fancy taking an extra precaution to avoid drowning in a dark underwater cave. When you do croak you will drop any resources you are carrying but your equipment is safe. If you do feel like this is a little bit too forgiving you could play the hardcore mode where you can only die once. For those who just like to be creative, there is a mode of the same name offering unlimited building with none of that survival malarky.

Of course, the ocean wouldn’t be the same without the creatures that occupy the various locations. Unknown Worlds have added an impressive amount of new creatures that will interact with you in some interesting ways. The Sea Monkey while initially prone to pinching your gear will eventually start bringing you items like an enthusiastic pooch. I love the little details, like how smaller fish you can catch will swim slower at night or after chasing them in the day will eventually get tired and slow down. The less I say about these new creatures the better and part of the magic of Subnautica is discovering them for yourself. I do love scanning the various critters and reading about them back at base with a cup of coffee. All of the information you gather is stored in your trusty PDA and there is a lot to dig into. Voice recordings, scientific data and much more are there to look over if you are so inclined.

Is it PC?

The pop-in issues from the first Subnautica were infamous. Even on a powerful rig you still get whole sections of coral just appearing out of thin air (or thin water maybe?) and for this type of game it’s painfully immersion breaking. While this seemed to be accepted by fans of the original, I’m glad to say this issue has all but been eradicated from the Below Zero. I have seen the occasional piece of iceberg fail to load for a few seconds but the difference from the first game is night and day. In terms of actual performance, I’ve been very impressed with how the game has run on a 2070 Super at 1440p. With all the settings on maximum, I’ve been getting between 50-80 fps consistently. 

The overall look of Below Zero is quite frankly gorgeous, with a wide range of biomes and aquatic life. The Kelp forests for example look amazing both in the daytime and also lit up creepier spores at night. There is also a good amount of man-made locations to discover from crashed ships, secret bases and those of a more mysterious nature. One thing I also feel like this game gets spot on are the animations when entering vehicles or bases. This transition is something you will see a lot and if it was too long it would really start to get old. I also like how interacting with objects doesn’t take you to a separate screen but handles it all in the world view. Immersion has always been a high priory for this game’s creators and it shows. 

The sound effects are another area of Below Zero that are absolutely fantastic. After spending a good degree of time in the ocean you will start to recognise certain creatures just by their noise and also in which direction they are (handy when near leviathan class beings). The soundtrack is also perfect with many musical pieces that I instil awe and wonder. I actually think Ben Prunty did a better job than his predecessor but that will obviously be down to your own preferences. I also love how you can now craft a Jukebox and play music you find scattered around the game world. Interestingly, these tracks are from fans of the first game and you can even add your own MP3s to the game file. If you’ve not played Yellow Submarine while driving a yellow Submarine you're really letting the best in life pass you by.

Conclusion 

While this second instalment in the Subnautica series is quite a bit smaller, it is also much more refined and does add a good number of new elements. I have seen some hardened Subnautica fans baulk at the idea of voiced characters as this messes with the loneliness and isolation of the first game. I can empathise with this viewpoint but I also recognise that the developers are trying new ideas which for me is a very good thing. With more definite goals this gives you a greater purpose and reason to get to that next piece of the puzzle. With that said, the game never pushes you along so players who like to just build and explore are free to play as they wish.

The survival genre has been getting a lot of great titles in the last few years and the original Subnautica is certainly one of the best. Unknown Worlds Entertainment clearly love what they do and are very good at it. Also developing a game in full view of your fans (and critics) shows just how much the devs believe in transparency and listening to the gamers. After another few years bringing the watery depths of 4546B to life I suspect they will be wanting a break to try other things. However, if we do ever see another Subnautica game I hope they don’t forget what made the original title so captivating. Despite a few minor missteps here and there I can heartily recommend Subnautica Below Zero. Yes, I think many fans will prefer the first game but I see this as just another fantastic chapter in the Subnautica story.

Thank you for reading my review for Subnautica Below Zero on PC. This game will now be leaving the oven (where I out early access games) and I wish the developers all the very best with the release. If you would like to know when I put out new reviews and content please follow me @riggedforepic or you can email me at riggedforepic@gmail.com