WHY THIS GAME?
Well I’ve just finished Subnautica.
I decided to play it after I’ve noticed I had the PS5 version for free on my PSN account (lol). At the time I had a PS Now sub, so I had the PS4 version of Subnautica, and well it turns out since I owned the PS4 version, I could get the PS5 upgrade for free. I’m no longer subbed to PS Now for a long time now, and I still have the PS5 version of Subnautica, so that’s cool. Thanks Sony!
I’ve always had this thing with deep sea and what lurks beneath, so since the first time I had heard of this game, I was interested in playing it, even more when I knew it had this survival kind of gameplay. Was literally right up my alley. Even so it took me quite a long time to finally get around to it (about 4 years), and honestly I can’t quite put the finger on it, guess I was just busy with other stuff. But damn, am I happy I finally got around to it.
DID I LIKE IT?
Hell yes! In general, it was a quite nice experience, but in the beginning I got to admit I was so lost, on what to do next, etc. I have to admit i had to resort to some sort of “next goal” to get me going in some spots, while trying to spoil the least possible. This made the experience must more enjoyable I think, otherwise It would have been a much more obtuse progression (I think!). My play time ended then being a bit on the lower end, but I can at least say it was fun all the way through.
Well some parts were quite hard. Without spoiling anything some endgame locations and goals get a bit harder than the rest of the experience, and if you don’t come prepared for it could set you back quite a bit, with leaving your stuff on that said location, and having to retrieved requires said stuff. I didn’t come through this, but I was so nervous it would happen.
Other than that I also loved the base building aspect, even though I think it could’ve had been expanded to create a real kind of base/factory. Underwater Factorio maybe? There were some limitations with the freedom of building, which sometimes didn’t allow me to build exactly what I wanted, but it was close enough. You couldn’t really decorate it as well, since most of the stuff was just in a dropped off state, always showing that annoying Pickup prompt. But just FYI, this aspect of the game isn’t really explained to the player, or I’m just dumb/not paying attention. When I was trying the tools I then discovered that I could make new pods, which then allowed me to go on and discover you can literally make a base.
The exploration is also fantastic. The huge ocean is split into biomes, with a lot of variety on the flora and fauna of each one. There was always something new and the further away you got from your escape pod, the weirder the stuff got. Overall really nice experience.
Oh and also, during my playthrough, I experienced some bugs which I thought were features. Without spoiling at the end of the game your body goes through a special “change”, and when this happened I noticed my O2 bar didn’t go down anymore. Oh, and I also didn’t need to eat/drink water anymore. I was a bit baffled, but since I did go through that, I thought it was supposed to happen. But the next time I picked up the game again, everything was back to normal. Well this one bug was quite useful because it allowed me to go back and get some vehicles back using only the Seaglide. Is this considered cheating? Not sure cause at the time I really thought it was a feature lol. Oh, well.
COMPLETION RATING?
I’m a completionist, so I think on all my future reviews (however many, if any at all), I’ll give a completion rating and general rating, just to rate how easy it is to complete it. BTW a small definition of completion for me currently is: If the game has any sort of Achievements/Trophies, then that. If not, it’s pretty much a 100% if possible, if not then honestly I don’t care much for completion.
For Subnautica, the trophy list is easy enough having a pretty high 35.47% completion rate on psnprofiles.com. It was easy, most of the trophies are tied to your own progression. Only one isn’t like this, and it’s the best boy quest (which basically only requires you to hatch it and release it). Who wouldn’t do it, he’s a good boy.
It is really easy to complete Subnautica, I’d say about a 2/10 in difficulty.
OVERALL RATING?
Rating time! I’m giving this one a solid 🍪🍪🍪🍪 / 5 because who’s a good boy?
That’s a wrap folks!