Subnautica: Below Zero joined Early Access on Steam about two years ago. They've recently released a cinematic trailer for it and announced it's release date of 5/14/21 for multiple platforms. If you liked Subnautica, you might like this. I thought the trailer was really interesting and funny. It follows a brief time of a guy living on the planet dealing with some of it's creatures, though they didn't show off any of the very large ones nor did they give much details in the way of the game's story.

S:BZ is much like Subnautica, but this time it takes place on an icy planet, so if you go to the surface, you'll see plenty of snow and some of the water you can swim under is covered in ice. There are new creatures, tools, and of course a new story. The story has changed since it's launch into Early Access. I played and followed the development early on briefly before they decided to rewrite the script and hire new voice actors. I got it right away, pretty much, because I very much loved Subnautica. Now that I'm looking at the Cheerful Ghost game database, I see no one's written about it. I'm surprised I didn't write about it, since I really enjoyed it (more than I thought I would). If you're unfamiliar with Subnautica, it's a crafting, survival, and exploration game, but takes place in the vast ocean of an alien planet after your space ship has crashed. You're left with an escape pod, which has some basic survival things you'll need. One of the greatest tools in the pod is a fabricator. There's a good variety of fish you can catch with your hands. They can be fast, so you'll want to craft your first major piece of technology, which is something you hold onto that can propel you forward. You can take fish to the fabricator and turn them into food or water. Different fish are better for satisfying your hunger, but some are much better for your thirst. You can breach the ocean's surface to get some air, but there are also plants that often pump out bubbles of oxygen you can breathe underwater. However, you're going to need to go much deeper, luckily you can craft some submersibles. In the end you'll have your own submarine. You can craft things with many of the planet's resources like copper, which is good for batteries, or quartz, which is good for glass. You'll find pieces of technology scattered on the floor of the ocean. Scanning these will give you progress towards being able to craft it. Beware though there are many dangers. There is a monster that can latch onto your submersible, which performs a really good "jump scare," but it's not the only thing down there to worry about. There are also a good amount of different biomes you'll find. While exploring, you'll find the logs of other survivors. You'll also find a very small island where you can find some useful things, like garden plots to scan and plants you can collect to create your very own self sustaining garden. You can build underwater housing, too, but if you build too many pieces (like glass windows), you'll need to support them by also building some reinforcement pieces or the pressure will break your habitat, which will flood. You can use a tool to repair leaks and also to add more reinforcement, so just because your habitat gets inundated, all hope is not lost as it can be fixed and the water can be drained. There are also a few different game modes, so if you want to play without the survival requirements (like food and water), you can do that.

Let me know what you think about the trailer and the game. Also let me know if you've played Subnautica. If you like games like Terraria, Minecraft, and Ark: Survival Evolved, I think it's a game you might like. If you want to watch some good videos on YouTube of someone playing Subnautica, I recommend looking at the channels of Paul Soares, Jr. and Sl!pg8r.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 05/15/2021 at 06:29am

I found an article stating that Subnautica, "was recently made free on PlayStation consoles through Sony's Play at Home initiative." It also states that people, "can upgrade their copy to the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S version at no additional cost." If that is available to you, I think you should jump on it! It'd be a shame to pass up a great game for free.

Subnautica: Below Zero was released yesterday along with a new trailer, which is quite unlike the one embedded in this post. The new one contains a bit of story, basically the beginning parts, so no real spoilers. The game is much like the original, in that it's story driven (though you can ignore it), but this one is based in a bit more of an Arctic-like setting. There's building, crafting, exploring, and resource collecting, along with hunger and thirst, just like the original game, but with some new things. There are, however, different game modes, so you could, for instance, ignore hunger and thirst requirements. In the article (posted in the links below), it says that GameSpot gave Subnautica a "9/10". Their review says, "Subnautica's story, scares, and beautifully rendered underwater setting make it one of the most fascinating survival games around." I regret that I did not write my own review of the game, it deserves a "Must Play" Cheerful Ghost rating.

I was an early adopter of Below Zero, since I enjoyed Subnautica so much. I paid for Below Zero when it was released for Early Access on Steam and I played through it a bit in the beginning, but decided to stop and wait for development to finish. I am kind of disappointed that they decided to recast some characters and change the script, but I don't think the new cast or script is so far disappointing.

Check out the article I found here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/subnautica-below-zero-and-free-subnautica-update-out-now/1100-6491531/?utm_source=gamefaqs&utm_medium=partner&utm_content=news_module&utm_campaign=homepage

Also, you can check out the trailer (which is included in the article) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZrjL1SzGvM

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