The Design of Subnautica
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- In this 2019 GDC session, Unknown Worlds' Charlie Cleveland discusses the design of Subnautica and how it created feelings of exploration, discovery and the unknown.
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As someone who often never completes a game, I have played Subnautica to the end five times. It's such an amazing and deeply engaging game.
conversely, as someone who is a die hard completionist, I never wanted to finish building that rocket, because the world had become my new home, not something to finish. They really nailed the whole intrinsic reward thing.
Subnautica is the best game I never finished 😀
Disclaimer: I didn't complete a single game since Mass Effect 2.
hate that I lose interest in every single player game after a few hours max, but that's the way it is.
Best, most immersive game I have ever played.
VR mode especially
@@cojeflane forging into dark and unexplored waters, not knowing what to expect is one of the greatest thrills I've gotten from any video game. I wish I could experience it again now. Search for the courage deep within you. It is there. I know you will make me proud, son
@@cojeflane you have made me proud, my courageous child
@@cojeflane stressed because of too many things to do right?
My heart breaks every time I see a GDC talk and inevitably people forget how to talk during the Q&A section. It's so cute how we are so passionate about making games and get so excited and nervous when asking our idols about it. I always laugh, cringe, and die inside in a good way. It's kind of a tradition. Every single Q&A xD
These guys kind of became celebrities in the indie scene, and people get weird about celebrities for whatever reason
"Would you please be so kind and introduce yourself to your neighbor." - that was awesome.
yeah and
embarrassing too
Awesomely embarrassing
"screams of the damned ensue for the next 5 minutes"
I was making a game with a small team based on Sbnautica's terror, and when the production ended, I felt like it was a failure and I failed as a result. This talk has helped me feel like what I was doing was hard, I just needed a bigger team and more time. It also helped me realize why I was making a horror game when what I wanted was a terror game.
And the message about meeting your neighbor is so nice. I'd love to meet Charlie in person and talk to him about what I could do with my game and just get to know him in general. He seems like a sweet man.
what game is it?
As someone who wants to go into the game development industry, this talk is really valuable. Thanks Charlie, and Subnautica is a fantastic game!
Life long gamer here. Subnautica is so good, that it is one of my favorites of all time... and I generally hate survival games. But, at its core, it is an exploration and discovery game and that is why it succeeds.
Nice job with the talk at GDC Charlie. You represented yourself, your game, and your company well. Very informative and engaging. I hope for more amazing experiences from Unknown Worlds in the future.
19:27 - I remember that, it was def. one of the "YES!" moments of the playthrough. Thought I was dead but made it. Felt like a dungeon master calling it to my favour or something. Very special :)
As a new subnautica player, i am quickly becoming a huge fan of not only the game itself, but the the team behind making it. Talk about passion, ideals, and a willingness to change their creative processes.
This brought me to tears. This passion is evident. I needed to hear this. The breakdown of MCP & minutes of fun.. this is so helpful. Trying to make something completely new is so scary. Thank you for helping me conquer this fear
You're sooo welcome. It probably doesn't make it too much easier, but I hope it helps even a little.
Regarding the spoilers question at the beginning of the Q&A session, as a player who played each release during early access and was spoiled along the way, it was still thrilling to play through the whole game one last time once it was done.
I’ve really wanted a doc on my fav game, this was pretty close to getting this, thanks for uploading!
This was a great presentation. Thank you Unknown Worlds for producing and developing the game
This honestly made me love the game even more, the main reason I liked it is it was I though it strived for a feeling instead of a specific slice of gameplay, and this confirmed it. This makes me hold off on the expansion because I want the full experience, but knowing their development process gives me so much confidence in the 1.0 release.
Started playing Subnautica a few days ago and im blown away by this game. I had to stop watching this video because of spoiler's, but ill be back.
This game made me feel more then any game ive ever played. I will never forget this game, ever. Thank you so much for this and i eagerly look forward to your next projects and/or add ons.
@@masshysteria4907 yeah, it's a masterpiece, despite of the many bugs it has. I don't even like survival games, moreover, I think horror games are the creations of mentally retarded people. And yet, even though I have no idea why I even considered playing this game (knowing very well what kind of game it was due to the research I've done at that time) I still consider it one of the best video games ever created, regardless of time, regardless of genre. Definitely in my top 5 games of all time, along with HoMM3 (WoG)
@@blabla-rg7ky I consider Subnautica as more of an adventure and exploration game than a survival game
@@ebrinckmannde I lost college because of it xD .... Mid-way from accommodation to college there was an internet cafe and I always stopped there "for a few minutes" when going to college to see what kids were playing, and then hired a computer "just for a few minutes to try Starcraft, Fifa 99, Bomberman, AvP, or Heroes 3"... Before I knew it it had been 22:00 o'clock and the cafe needed to close and there I was missing my day at college.... did this routine for 4-5 days a week + 2 days on the weekend for a total of 7 full days out of 7 maximum... each week, for a full year xD
And the worst part - from a moral point of view - is that I don't regret shit what I've done LOL
@@zeallust8542 you may be right but I said "survival" because it has survival elements and it's in this game genre anyway
I always liked the sunnier biomes more. For me, Subnautica is about the thrill of exploration and building your own big home. Deep biomes are cool in their own way but Safe Shallows always remained my favorite. I didn't see this fear (the thrill of being scared?) of big predators as a cool feature of the game. Futuristic technologies and machines added a lot of fun to the game as well.
P.S. Wishlist? I wish they had added more lore to the game. I understand a lot of people don't read books in games but I prefer to know everything. I usually read books in games.
I saw the thrill as awesome but discovery is still my favorite part. Which is why I think they struck a good balance. Even in the depth there are places of calm (in fact I'm willing to bet that just like me, half of the player have an underwater base somewhere around the 900m mark in a specific place. I even built a zoo there!)
@@Arkayjiya Yes that place was hard to miss. I imagined actually sleeping in that base with large windows on a specific structure and the activity around it. Would be cool!
Mostly I just found this reassuring. I'm developing on my own, and it sounds like I am working a lot like Charlie Cleveland worked -- I'm still carving out the shape of the game, figuring out what things can be added or improved that support the core fantasy and pave the road to more gameplay and that end idea, foggy as it might still be, without blowing up the scope. Just going little by little.
Helpful talk.
I'm so glad! Being in the jungle is normal. Not easy, but to be expected, if you're making an original game.
In my steam library I have a category called Best Game Ever. Subnautica is on that very short list. Another of the games is one that died in Early Access - and its abandonment still hurts to this day. They did the monthly big feature releases just like the Subnautica team, but it wasn't until this talk that I realised it was the lack of emotionally impactful experiences that most likely let it down. Charlie's talk showed me it really needed those moments that make a streamer go wide eyed with wonder or shriek in terror to really engage with a wider audience. Fantastic, eye opening talk. Thank you.
One of best GDC talks i have listened to. So much great info on so many topics. Thank you.
The scanner is fucking genius. Sure it's kinda tacky and seems like a lazy mechanic but they made it an irreplaceable part of the game by the amount of work they put behind it. You can scan so many things it makes the world feel ten times bigger and more alien when you read the fucking crazy descriptions of some organisms.
Yeah the amount of effort that went into all the item and creature descriptions is insane! Really, as you say, makes the world feel a lot bigger.
Metroid Prime could've done just as good, but the technological limitations of the era prevented it. Kinda sad, because I do agree that adding scan-able stuff can help gameplay and atmosphere.
Best therapy session i had in a while, i now know how to deal with my problems!
I almost didn't play the game, because I swam around at the beginning and didn't "feel it". Just continued, because my brother played further and further. And I must say, it was one of the best experiences I had!!
so many hopeful game makers 49:04
What a fantastic talk. We'll be using this in our design for sure
Getting heavy Mac from Always Sunny vibes from his mannerisms for some reason. Great talk!
Subnautica was hands down the first time "early access" games did not fail me. Everytime someone says "early access always go bad" i bring this game as an example how good it can be.
I have bought Subnautica: Below Zelow without even thinking about it. Havent played a bit, but i am looking forward what the complete game will look like!
Played this on a whim and was totally in awe of how addictiveley amazing this game is could not stop myself from playing
This has so much good information for aspiring game developers.
your game gave me hope for creative games again
What a great talk, lots of wisdom in there!
I'm glad I stumbled upon this talk. I've already had a few too many projects that shooting into the far left field of the jungle of dev and ultimately becoming terminated for the sake of maintaining project turnover.
subnautica became one of my top 10 best games of all time and it's great seeing the thoughts behind a lot of the decisions made
it does a lot of the little things right and really hooks me in emotionally like he said, trying to convey a vibe more then just ham fist me something
So even if it's not the best at different aspects, it stuck with me far more then those games that had bigger budgets or had REALLY big stories or 1000's of hours of dialogue or whatever
I really hope subnautica kicks off a whole B level gaming market that really flourishes some very fleshed out ideas that are unique ideas from studios not as controlled by big companies but large enough to be a bit more ambitious then the usual stereotype indie games
Might make more players and consumers who usually just go with the easy AAA game stop and try out something a little different, keep the art of gaming alive
I love Subnautica
"i didnt wanna add more guns to the world" 3 mins into the video and it got my thumbs up
Thank you for that brilliant talk !
49:30 crowd sound sample
A true masterclass.
Whether we have a restaurant or a game, the essential thing is the eater's or gamer's emotional experience while visiting the restaurant or playing the game.
YES! I love Subnautica!
Ha, I remember the random start location making me question if the game was procedural
Didn't learn anything new, but it was a really positive talk.
That's most GDC talks tbh, but still,this one felt very nice.
@@Sagaan42 Yeah, I feel the same thing when various developers do a post-mortem about their games or talk about their games: whether it's technical side or artistic side of things. Most of these "lectures" talk in generalities, which is a bit sad. Still, it's better than nothing.
@@phlegios Some of them really DO teach you interesting stuff, they're just rare to stumble upon.
@@Sagaan42 true
@@phlegios I tried to think of some examples today, and had a hard time. I think i learnt some interesting stuff in the Zelda BOTW postmortem for example. But I think that postmortems are just too generic in their substance. In order to learn something, you have to go into more specific and precise talks.
And if EA had designed it you would have needed 100 Titanium for a knife and could buy ingame currency to speed up the farming. And it would always push some notifications for that. And that would have ruined the game.
And Bethesda would have sold White paint for the Sub for 20$
The crashed ship and islands would be DLCs
you give EA too much credit, the knife would obviously be a random drop from the fun and ethical(tm) "surprise mechanic" crafted with those 100 titanium.
@@gdfish3532 dont forget to power it with Ion crystals.
it actually hurts me how likely these jabs actually are
Subnautica is the best thing I have played in my 30 years of gaming.
It's up on my top 10 games of all time list, for sure. Such a unique and absolute gem of a gaming experience.
The depth is not negative infinity... its about 8k meters... if you drop the prawnsuit down (with max depth capacity upgrade) and jump out at the last second and then swim deeper... you pop out of the sky!
It's actually 10k, and it also always puts you at the safe shallows biome spawn.
Subnautica team a love your game, can you fix the xbox one controllers not working on pc?
sir, you brought us a big ass platform GUN.
To bad they didn’t used the same approach on Below Zero
Love this game!!!
interesting look on building a game
Great talk!
Funny it doesn't mention the game breaking glitches still present like your giant sub just disappearing for no reason. Or glitching to #3ll inside the ship on both PS4 and PC.
Hey University if Wisconsin represent in the ending Q&A!
I feel like I heard this talk before. Is it a repost?
I felt the same way too, searching the channel I think it's because there was also a Subnautica postmortem talk that went up just a couple months ago.
@@Kenjibudo yeah I agree
Anybody know the name of the Solar Fields track?
42:17 what is the difference between 'horror' and 'terror'?
In short - Horror is short, and based purely on quick scares. Terror is long and sticks with you.
This is great
I want the map they have.
ok how come he mentions minecraft but doesn't mention half-life/portal
Pretty sure I’ve already seen this on TH-cam somewhere unless this is brand spanning new
Edit: I guess Subnautica 1 was a fluke because Below Zero was nowhere near as good. It was a fun game but def not as impressive.
14:23 MCP
43:50 book review "Designing your life"
I didn't know deadpool was a game developer
Lmao, Ryan Reynolds
That was pretty sweet when he asked people to introduce themselves. :)
What was he saying "oops" about at 11:25 ?
Ruffled his mic
Johnas, being a programmer, made a better structured presentation. ^_^
One day ...
I don't like Subnautica, couldn't get into it, maybe this talk will help me understand.
13:00 this slide is so american 😂
9:30
14:00
Whats this guy gonna do when he finds out how many kids drown in swimming pools every year. "Let me tell you why in Subnautica 2, we removed all the water...."
Just jokes people, I know he means well. Great game.
Who else jumped at 21:35?
Omg, just the moment you walk out the pot for the first time is mindblowing. Love both Subnauticas to the core!
First one!
tl;dr - ain't no rest for the wicked. thank god there's coffee and power naps.
"I don't think the media causes violence therefore I decided not to make violent media because I don't want to cause violence."
In other words, I think I am part of the problem but I don't want to admit it.
On a related note, giving more publicity to mass shootings makes them more likely to happen. It's called the media contagion effect and it also happens with suicides. If you want to make a non-violent game, say you think there is too much violence in the world, maybe make an anti-war statement and do NOT give more publicity to the people who WANT more publicity for their atrocities.
Another point worth noting, Japan has no shortage of violent media and Switzerland has no shortage of privately owned guns yet both countries have some of the lowest rates of violence on Earth. What both nations have in common are constitutions that forbid starting or participating in wars. Do you think maybe that has something to do with it?
No, both Switzerland and Japan have more homogeneous populations and where the population isn't homogeneous conflict is far likely to happen. That is why the Swiss suffer from a rape epidemic caused by Muslim immigrants. Also Japan suffers from a violence epidemic but it's self inflicted. The Japanese have one of the leading suicide rates in the world. These in no way correlate with media violence . I respect the devs attitude towards it though because he is leading by example. It's pretty hypocritical when guy who believes that media causes violence works on a violent FPS while advocating to censor such content. At the very least he didn't push for forcing other people to change and kept his comment short and personal since it wasn't the focus of the lecture.
Imagine thinking that anti war constitution makes your population less violent haha. It’s the PEOPLE and CULTURE. In Japan and Switzerland people respect eachother and it’s very safe. Flood a country with different people and cultures and what do you get? Fractured society, suspicion, no trust, and crime.
Cool