Subnautica Review – Who needs a Porg when you can have a Cuddle Fish?

Subnautica is a single-player, open world, underwater survival game developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. You play as a crash-landed space pilot left to your own peril on an alien ocean world filled with mysterious, often ominous and spectacular ocean life. Subnautica first appeared on the mainstream game radar at Pax East 2014 but here in 2018 the long-awaited launch has finally arrived, this is our Subnautia review.

Subnautica has four different game modes:

  • Freedom Mode – Must manage health and oxygen or you will die and lose all items, you may return to where you died and you may also earn the ability to lock your inventory.
  • Survival Mode – Similar to the above but food and water are added to the mix.
  • Hardcore Mode –  Similar to the above except you die once and must start again.
  • Creative Mode – Sandbox, none of the above occurs, materials and blueprints are not required. Vehicles and Sea bases do not require energy.

All of these modes were visited by me but for the sake of this review, I chose Creative Mode to play extensively to see what its like to build and explore as much as possible. Let me get straight to the point, I cannot stress enough how incredibly beautiful this game is. How fluid it is to also manage UI tools, your inventory and begin to survive. It is so beautiful I kept forgetting time, one hour turned into three when I was only meant to hop in for 30 minutes. Is this game worth $24.99? Absolutely, in fact, I think it’s worth twice this. A tall statement in today’s saturated gaming market with a passionate populace ready to fight for reduced costs where possible but the immersion devoted to Subnautica is second to none.

The latest Eye Candy update implemented the polish we didn’t know we needed until it happened and BAM every hue, shade, and vibrancy popped letting the hours I had already lost turn into even more. Subnautica compete’s with many MMO’s and makes every lover of MMORPG’s wish there was a world like this we could discover together with friends and family. I swear I’ve forgotten to breathe sitting at my PC from the awe and suspense taking over my senses every time I dive to continuously wonder what’s just around this corner or over that ridge. There is this lingering sense of fright just lurking behind this state of awe that makes you want more and more. Subnautica is also the first game I haven’t cursed when I’ve forgotten to save which is a miracle on its own because I didn’t mind starting over again but what stood out a lot this weekend is performance. Smooth, really smooth.

Subnautica has also convinced me that this household needs a Virtual Reality headset to really enjoy worlds as stunning as this one – a very smart move by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

You could think of every survival game available currently, consider every game you have ever fallen in love with because of its water – which is massively important to many gamers including me, but nothing compares to Subnautica. The only flaw I could truly find was that already mentioned component to exist on this earth called “time,” keeps running out.  Unknown Worlds Entertainment has delivered everything they said they were going to plus so much more with more updates on the launch horizon and for these reasons they can easily be forgiven for taking this long. It was worth the wait.

Note: Our review was conducted on PC with a code provided by the developer.

Final Subnautica Review Score – 9.5/10

Pros:

Absolutely gorgeous underwater world

Ideal for VR

Great sense of discovery

Cons:

Could use a frequent auto-save

2 Comments

  1. This is such a great game can’t wait for full release of the story and possibly new biomes today

    • The updates lately and also coming also lend to the amount of pleasure this game gives its players, so I totally agree and cannot wait to play and learn more! Livestream in a few hours, hopefully see you there!

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