Why BELOW ZERO failed next to SUBNAUTICA
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2024
- A deep dive into Subnautica's oceans to figure out where Below Zero went wrong.
00:00 The protagonists & the tone
06:19 The stories amongst the environments
10:29 The land segments
14:01 The conclusion to the narrative
16:08 The soundtracks (Ben Prunty vs Simon Chylinski)
19:43 The basebuilding additions
20:49 The loss of Subnautica's immersion
22:53 Horror vs terror (the real problem)
30:44 The leviathans & the endgame
39:09 The vehicles & traversing the map
41:16 What's next?
Source materials:
A clip from "Fear the Reaper - a Subnautica animation" by @DigitalDave
• Fear the Reaper - a Su...
Clips from "Subnautica: Below Zero Interview..." by The Escapist Magazine
• Subnautica: Below Zero... - เกม
What I love about the first game is that if you never wanted to return to civilization, you have that option. Even though I left that planet, there's still a little part of me still holded up in my base, waiting for my batteries to finish charging so I can start venturing out into the open sea with my noble Cyclops and valent Seamoss. So damn magical.
Man I was so into the first game that when i finished building the rocket, I just automatically starting building storage cabinets inside it and began filling them with food, water, and some materials that i may need. Wasn't till after I started the launch sequence when i realized "O wait this is the end of the game"
Aahaha me too! I was so ready for my next adventure, I think I spent a couple of trips alone just carting the best water bottles up to my ship 🙄
Whoever got my time capsule was a lucky SOB too - the thing was more packed out than an IKEA showroom 😄
Yeah, I miss that base.
I'm doing what feels like my 20th playthrough right now, just finished a base that I always build to the north east cave entrance in the bulb zone.. Just lounging. Spent my last session building an observatory just cuz I know there's a leviathan somewhere, come and get me. Other than that? Waiting for some marblemelon to grow. I wonder if that radio will start blinking at some point.
Personally I see this as my canon ending. Going back means a gargantuan mountain of debt, so…why? Why bother. Stay around, uncover more secrets of the planet, the precursors, eat some melons.
@@ejoman3002 this brings back memories of my first time building the rocket lol, moved damn near all my shit onto it
My first time seeing a reaper was when i was trying to get over my overwhelming fear of the game and it's environment, so I decided that the best way to do this was to swim all the way to the aurora and back. I made it to the aurora without incident, but when i looked back down at the water after jumping up onto it to have a second to breathe and ease my anxiety, the mere look at the water sent me into a panic, I stood there for what felt like an eternity before finally throwing myself into the water. Everything was fine for about 10 seconds, before i heard the roar saw it's massive head underneath me. All I could do was just swim and hope that it would leave me alone, which did somehow work out for me. It's one of 2 times I've ever genuinely screamed at a game. I will never forget that experience. Needless to say, it did not, in fact, help with my fear
Lol I love this, it totally took me back. So what, you made it all the way onto the Aurora and when you jumped back in the water the Reaper was right below you?? And you managed to survive too? Many no way, I'm surprised you ever went back to the game haha
@@CasualGamr yeah pretty much, only reason i went back was because of how highly everyone talked about it and how pretty the game was 💀
so........ you were terrified of the game, so you went to the aurora, and when you decided to a reaper just.... appeared?
man I will never stop regretting watching a playthrough of the game before playing it
Ah man I feel for you. When I was a kid, another kid on the playground told me the ending of The Sixth Sense. Just straight up hit me with words instead of fists. Then I watched it the twist was so lacklustre. Never got over that. One of the greatest movies twists ever … stolen from me 😩
Yeah people have a tendency to insist on spoiling story beats or plot-lines for others@@CasualGamr
I liked the first story line when below zero was in its first alpha stages, her sister was alive aboard the satellite ship and the main character came down to check on the staff who had not reported, when she tried to check on them is when she wws left stranded. Her sister began helping her from up there to find a way to leave. No clue why they chose to scrap that
Omg I remember this! When they scrapped the original story and killed the sister I was so disappointed.
And she was nice to listen to. New Robin has so many lines that are just like, "get over yourself for two seconds!"
Yeah, the initial story was great!
According to them, they wrote themselves into a corner with Alan. They didn't knew how to wrap up the story, with Alterra looking for the alien and why would Robin want to leave the planet for the alien world. There were conflicts about it in the writing room, then I think the main storywriter called it and left. That's when the rest of the team scrapped to OG story and reworked it.
@@StalkerQtyathe story could’ve had multiple endings then! An Alterra ending or an Alan ending, maybe even a 3rd ending as well.
I wonder what problems they were having with the story that the couldn’t have thought about the idea of multiple endings being plausible. Sure it could add more development time, but that’s sorta why its in early access…
Personally, I could get over the poor story and somewhat questionable dialogue, but the biggest nail in the coffin for me was the map size - The claustrophobia was just no where near as impactful as those wide-open, can't-see-the-bottom moments in the original that triggered my thalassophobia so much. Being able to see the bottom at almost all times seriously decreased my enjoyment of the game because it just completely put me at ease, which was further compounded by the creatures being far too common and far too aggressive, causing me to - as you mentioned - treat them like an annoying obstacle, instead of a frightening threat.
Really, if the map was far deeper, open, and more sparse, I think it would have done a huge favor for the game. There wouldn't even really need to be anything in the newly created space; just spread out the current landmarks (and creatures) significantly, and I wouldn't feel the need to go back to the original game to get my Ocean-survival fix.
Yeah, you know I swear I wrote about that sepcifically in an earlier draft of the script, must have chopped it out at some point by mistake haha. But for absolute sure, any time you looked down and it was just green darkness beneath you, especially when floating above biomes where you were fairly sure something dangerous is patrolling beneath you, and you just don't want to dive down and find out 😂
The map was very different. Instead of wide and empty it was deep and twisting in a way that you felt like you might not find your way back out of a cave. But I never felt like I was about to get jumped.
I tend to agree with you. Below zero did have some good improvements in some areas and I think it's an amazing looking game, so it's not all bad... it just doesn't scratch that itch you mention.
That weird like green blood root zone in below zero annoyed tf outta me because it was trying to be scary and claustrophobic but I just was annoyed and lost
Because Below zero is a more verticle and compact map, hey traded off a big open map to a more cave-ey map and i like it.
I remember the absolute DREAD I felt watching people play the original Early Access version of Below Zero as new content was slowly pumped out, and seeing the Chelicerate my first thought was "I'm so scared of that thing, it barely makes any noise and I'll have no idea it's coming until it eats me." Fast forward to today, the ONLY time that thing has scared me even remotely close to a Reaper was when I was leaving a Vent Garden and it managed to sneak its way around as I tried to reorient myself to get back to my seatruck and quickly nabbed me up for a bite. Any other time I literally just drive on by them with a wave and a "Hi Chelly! Don't come too close or I'll have to smack ya!"
And the Shadow Leviathans were SO disappointing. I LOVE the Crystal Caves because they look so nice to me, but it's just so cramped and same-y that it's just. Infuriating. Add in the Leviathans that LITERALLY patrol on invisible rails? Disappointing. I honestly one time just wanted to go into there with an invincibility mode on with a ton of pathfinder tools and just. Attempt to put discs that followed their exact rail so I knew where they'd be so I could avoid them. My only anxiety was from them just patrolling the same area. It wasn't even terror for me, it was just "Alright, when are they gonna wrap back around on their invisible rails?"
Their AI is way too dumb, just lure them to a narrow space, then whack them for 5 minutes straight(5000 hp)! Repeat 3 times then no more shadow-annoyers
@@krisztiankohut3241 as much as that would ease my issues, especially with wanting to make a base, they also (unfortunately) make for nifty ambiance and I feel like taking them away would just make the space that much more blah
I was into it at the start. I saw so many things that were amazing and just felt good. Then like you, I saw the best parts stripped away again and again.
These days, I think of it as a slightly more optimized engine for the game, and not much more. Take all the equipment from both, fiddle with the world a little, and you've got something really good though.
@@ICountFrom0 I fully agree with you! Like, if I wanna fiddle around with making a base and making it nice and personalized with a bit of grind, I'll boot up Below Zero and play the story again (minus Al-An's body. We're never separating. You make the Sea Monkeys play nice). But if I want the experience of the game, I go with Subnautica. Like, If I could do all of the base stuff (like decor, and blueprints such as enameled glass) from Below Zero in OG Subnautica, I'd probably never boot up Below Zero ever again. Because I love the locations and the creatures and everything from the original more than BZ. But I sometimes miss my Sea Monkeys or domesticated Squid sharks and glow whales along with juke box and such. And that's the only thing that occasionally brings me back to BZ.
What we need is a mod that lets us play the old game, in the new engine (unnerf the boost tank though), with every part of everything unlocked somewhere along the way. I'd LOVE to drive the truck through the old world.
Subnautica is the only survival game in existence to make me ask the question when building my escape:
“Do I really want to leave though?”
That, is proof it’s a great game.
Fr I got the all the cuddle fish so it was even harder to leave😂
This was me too. I decided on one of my playthroughs that I wasn't leaving. In my AU, the quarantine guns are never disabled in order to protect the planet from Alterra. If you leave the planet, you're looking at owing them an insane amount of money anyhow.
My biggest issue with below 0 was the shadow leviathan making me have to repair my sea truck every 5 seconds.
Couldn't agree more, and it was even more of a faff in the PRAWN suit without the defence measures.
I feel that. When I got into that cave, the leviathan got stuck maybe twice within 10, so I just decided to kill it with the prawn. That surely wouldn't be a futile effort, because three more are waiting deeper in the cave right? That is also something I liked about the sea dragons. There were only two, but taking one out is a herculean task. But that is barely realisable in below zeros cave system
There is a way that any predator will not attack you while in your sea truck. If you hear the predator nearby just hit "e" and somehow the predator does not sense you anymore if you are in the sea truck but NOT behind the wheel and he is drifting away again. Just watch out that you are not leaving your sea truck while hitting the "e" key.
I bult my base near the fabricator caves entrance, there are no shadows there
@@emorsiyeah, that also happened in the first game if you closed the engine and got up, the sea truck doesnt have that system so its easier
My playtime of both games says a lot about how I felt playing them.
Subnautica: 85h
Below Zero: 5h
I just couldn't get immersed into BZ, because whenever I was starting to get into it, my thought-process was interrupted by Robin's monologues. I finished my session and was in no hurry to get back to it, as opposed to the OG, where I found myself zoning out at work thinking about how I should expand my habitat, what I needed for it and where I should explore next. And chewing off the ears of my cousin and co-worker, going on-and-on about it.
Hope I can move myself to give it another shot some day, as I really like the arctic climate setting...
On another note: I don't mind a voiced narrative if the story is interesting. The story they had in the early-access version at least sounded more intriguing (from what I heard about it). It feels as though the devs decided to backpedal away from the story-focused aspect of the game, towards a more classic experience but yet again stopped half-way from there, leaving behind a half-baked mess of a story, stuck somewhere in-between "too much story for a survival-focused game like the OG" and "too few story elements to have a decent narrative-driven experience".
Yeah I think a loss of immersion is at the heart of the issue. Narratives are cool, they just have to be integrated with care when messing with a proven formula. I've actually read similar accounts about the story, it would be awesome to get an interview with one of the team one day and ask them, I bet they have some awesome stories to tell!
Oh man this prompted me to look at my playtime of the two.
Subnautica: 127.3 hours
Below zero: 12.7 hours
That really does speak volumes.
387 hours in Subnautica, 11 in Below Zero.
I like both games but below Zero is Mediocre sitting at a 5/10 while subnautica is a 10/10 for me.
Not unusual when most of the experience is not novel when you have played Original game beforehand. This is also the same reason why many people who played BZ first like BZ more, it was a completely novel experiencea
For me for example I played BZ first, then after literally 5+ playthroughs of BZ I bought Subnautica (1). Still have only played the original less than 5 hours, while I have literally 300+ hours in BZ (spread over steam and my Nintendo switch)
@@arioamin eh, it's unusual to play the sequel first tho
Someone send this video to Unknown Worlds!
I totally agree. BZ lacked the immense sense of isolation and vulnerability from being alone on a completely unknown and hostile world. Character anonymity featured in the first game contributed greatly to this feeling and having a voiced protagonist in SNBZ, with a back story who willingly chose to go to 4546B rather than being stranded there greatly took away from this feeling. Having AL-an along also detracted from the feeling of isolation.
Additionally, the more linear story of BZ no longer felt like I was discovering age-old events at my own pace as I gained the courage and tech to venture deeper into the depths, detracting from the sense of freedom and exploration (and vulnerability) of the original.
I hear you brother 🙏 I just hope Unknown Worlds recognise how many big fans of the original feel this way and try to rescue the isolation vibe in the third game somehow.
@@CasualGamr I think the key word is FEEL. The original game made you feel things, whereas Below Zero didn't.
Not unusual when most of the experience is not novel when you have played Original game beforehand. This is also the same reason why many people who played BZ first like BZ more, it was a completely novel experience@@andrewweltlich9065
For me for example I played BZ first, then after literally 5+ playthroughs of BZ I bought Subnautica (1). Still have only played the original less than 5 hours, while I have literally 300+ hours in BZ (spread over steam and my Nintendo switch)
@@CasualGamr Co-op is a confirmed feature of the next Subnautica so don't get your hopes up about them understanding the importance of the isolation vibe.
@@CasualGamr for that, they need to introduce a whole different planet. You can't expect the same loneliness and isolation you had when first exploring new territories... from a place that is already known for large resource deposits and has been studied/mined for years now.
I think you've hit all the points you raised exactly on the head, especially the leviathans, but one more thing i'd like that made Subnautica significantly scarier than Below Zero were the Warpers. Warpers were my biggest fear, even bigger than the Reaper Leviathans and that's because Warpers could do one thing any other creature couldn't do, remove the safety you felt in your vehicle. I never felt particularly scared when I was in my seamoth or prawn because I knew that it could tank a few hits, or it was fast enough to get me away from it, but the Warper would suddenly dump you in open water, where you were very, very vulnerable. Every time I encountered one and it teleported me out of my seamoth or prawn, I would panic in a way that i had never panicked anywhere else in the game.
With Reapers, you could always skirt very carefully around them or hide in a very tight space until they lost interest in you and you could sneak away, but with the Warper, it would literally hunt you down, so if you ever saw them, you knew you either had to run away very, very quickly, before it caught on to you, or die. I would shit bricks and do a complete 180 whenever I saw the tell-tale warp portal in the murky distance, in the corner of my eye, or heard their distinctive chitter behind me. The fact that they weren't restricted to a biome made me tense and nervous everywhere I went, and when I realised they were GUARDING the alien bases, I would actively put off exploring them until I felt prepared enough to try and risk getting their attention.
Below Zero has NOTHING like this. As long as you kept your seamoth or Seatruck close to you, you could always run back to it and sit there to calm down and try again. Your vehicles are your ultimate safe space, and because it's so vital to the core gameplay experience of, you know, exploring, you eventually never end up actually feeling truly unsafe in your environment in the same way the Warper made you feel. I knew I could explore any biome I wanted with impunity because there wasn't anything that could kill me in one hit while i was in my vehicle, and alien bases actually became boring, just another waypoint to tick off my checklist.
Idk, for me, it's just one small stone on a lot of other small stones that make up why this game was a flop for me, but that's the biggest difference that stood out to me playing these two games. Warpers, man, warpers.
Yeah, those warpers suck. But like with every other creature, you can outmaneuver them. They shoot teleportation orbs, which can be avoided with enough skill.
The worst creatures for me were the Crabsquids, they're big, fast, agile, can knock your seamoth out temporarily with an EMP, and they're junkyard dog aggressive. I get serious trepidation about even going into their territory and if I do hear one I immediately go dark and stop what I'm doing until I can pinpoint its location.
Subnautica isn't supposed to be scary. Also, Below Zero is a mini-release, as it was going to be a subnautica dlc but was too big for that, it's not the sequel. Subnautica 2 is in development currently.
Warpers were obnoxious. I know they are placed there by the Precursors to guard the facilities but still they don't fit the world, nor the mechanics of the game. That's how I feel anyways.
@@Treador55 they weren't meant to. Built by aliens, looking like aliens, they are alien to this world by their nature and it shows.
Your description for the second character we get to play with, already tells it all, when it comes to why it failed so many points for the fan base.
Thanks, and for sure I agere. I mean I quite liked her character as it happened... I just didn't want to have to play as her haha. All I really want is an empty shell that I can inhabit :)
This is by far the best summarisation of why I felt Below Zero absolutely paled in comparison to the original Subnautica, and nothing I’ve seen in developer interviews or game news has convinced me that the devs have learnt from their mistakes for the next Subnautica either. If anything, it seems like they accidentally stumbled onto the oppressing and terrifying lonely atmosphere of 1 and are actively trying to avoid it. Shout out for really highlighting the incredible impact Simon Chylinski had on the originals atmosphere too. Not enough people draw attention to Below Zeros weak soundtrack and generic alien sound design in comparison. Great video
Thanks so much, I really appreciate the feedback, that's kind and it inspires me to do more! I avoided watching comparison videos (as much as I wanted to haha) as I didn't want to be swayed, but that's good to hear I'm cornering that angle haha 🙏
Couldn't agree more.
So much this, I laugh at scary (killing) games, they're dumb but one game Im terrified of is Minecraft. When you're completely alone in the vastness of the world I feel existential dread. So I have to surround myself with chickens and animals xD
Below Zero is a mini-release, as it was going to be a subnautica dlc but was too big for that, it's not the sequel. Subnautica 2 is in development currently.
Really well structured and explained! Great video :)
Thanks so much, I appreciate the feedback!
fr
Bacon the Subnatucia Goat
Hello Bacon
Correction, there are like two 'scripted jumpscares' in Subnautica. However, they are the two Sea Emperor messages you get after doing a certain thing well delayed after that event, with enough so that you're doing something else and get scared by the sudden blue thing obscuring your vision.
For me the PDA's scripted warning when entering Mountains (or was it Dunes) about multiple Leviathans nearby is jump scare'y enough to count. Even if I finished the game previously and killed almost every leviathan spawn multiple times.
I mean, I can see you got 92 likes already so clearly lots of people agree, but I'd argue that in any game, a moment where entering a specific location triggers violins to screach frantically as a horrifying monster jumps out the shadows and tries to rip your head off like in say Dead Space, or Outlast, is a better definition of a scripted scare. A forced moment of horror. The messages - in my humble opinion - as out of the blue as they are, serve to thicken the atmosphere and feed your terror so that you *expect* another horrifying moment might be around the corner, but they don't actually make you jump out your seat. But that's just the way I see it 😊
@@CasualGamrRIght. The sea emperor messages don't happen in a specific place either. You could be in the middle of the water, at your home base, out exploring, killing something etc and get the message. It's not a scripted event.
@@CasualGamr I consider it scripted because it won't randomly happen on it's own, if you're aware of the jumpscare to begin with, you know it'll happen at x time.
@@Drave_Jr. Everything in software is scripted, literally by definition. If you're aware of how it works you know what will happen. If you don't, that's called a bug.
Turns out when you fire most of your original dev team due to political issues, you can't make a decent game which captures the spirit of the original 🤷
I was actually only aware of Simon Chylinski being dismissed by Charlie Cleveland personally after a discussion behind closed doors, after he got called up for his controversial tweets. Do you know who else did they let go?
He really abandoned the ship
@@lazy_guy_2525 They were lost at sea without him
Look, respectfully, I cannot agree with half of what you’re saying about both games. I believe the more claustrophobic design is well executed and perfect for the setting. It’s a frozen wasteland, of course the passages both above and below water will be narrow, ice is something that spreads when it’s below freezing temperatures. Also the Cyclops-Seamoth strategy isn’t an efficient way of playing, the Seatruck isn’t being utilized correctly as sort of a convoy. The Prawn Suit is more valuable due to the damage reduction, damage output, and overall utility it offers in comparison to both. It’s also much cheaper to get a Prawn Suit than a Cyclops and I personally only used the Cyclops to transport my Prawn Suit long distances and for the shield generator needed to make the Neptune Rocket. The Seatruck is the same thing in that right, due to both the storage modules and Prawn Suit docking module that let you transport materials efficiently.
Personally, I see both games as examples of what to do right then it comes to survival games, like they said horror wasn’t the primary focus of the game and it shouldn’t be judged as a survival horror game. Also I never had issues with how quickly the enemies in Below Zero attacked, even the Shadow Leviathan wasn’t an issue because there was only four and they patrol a set path that has many hiding spots to avoid them with, mainly the purple crystals near the edges and the trenches for the first area, then under the red crystals in the Fabrication Caves.
I respect your opinion but I just wanted to state my piece to help inform players and viewers about some tips if they do decide to see this and play the game.
For sure, I mean with millions of copies sold it is inevitable how many different perspectives there will be. Hell, even approaches to playing the game will vary widely. But ultimately attempted to carefully lay out my points in a constructive manner, trying to consider both sides of the argument. And the facts are, it undersold, it is widely considered subpar by the community based on ratings and forums alike, and it was a somewhat rushed production. My angle is simply a discussion about how the next Subnautica entry can be closer to one template or the other, and my preference by a very long way would be to model itself on the first. I found the land segments painfully boring, the Cyclops action segments where you're attacked by creatures such a shame to lose, and the lack of huge, thalassaphobia-inducing expanses of ocean to be connected to the loss of immersion in Below Zero.
I hear everything you say, I read your thoughts twice and respectfully accept them, but if you disagree that I am calling out Below Zero for being the lesser of the two games, then how do you feel about all the land segments? And the loss of a silent protagonist? Do you feel the two games were equally enjoyable?
I have never walked on land on my own legs. I always used the Prawn. Too fast for the worms, too much armor for the little stalkers. That is because I never knew how to get the fur for the suit. Though I'm glad I did not, so the Prawn turned me into a tank on land too.
Getting the fur was kinda dumb anyway so you have not missed out, I basically just ran in the cave when the parent animals where away and zoomed trough the whole cave from pup to pup (because the fur was near the pups).
Meanwhile my suit got destroyed by such a worm... He was fully packed with ion cubes and upgrades. Walking back to my base was hell. 😩
I did the same! Never got the recipe for the hovercraft either. There just wasn;t much to do on land and I have zero memories of the worms and their scaryness. Bit of a disappointment.
@@carlc.4714 ya gotta use the grapples. Grapple jump and the stupid worms will never touch you unless you get stuck.
The devs actually disliked that people were skipping the awful frustration of the ice worm area by using the Prawn, so instead of fixing any of the awful frustrating parts of the area they made the worm do vastly more damage to the Prawn in an update. I was already done with the game before that but it's hilarious to me that they decided to make the game worse because people weren't engaging with the extremely unfun way they wanted you to play it. Makes me wonder what happened to the dev team from the original Subnautica, because surely those same people wouldn't make asinine decisions like that.
Yes, stepping out of my vehicle to repair it in SN 1 was terrifying in that I'd always feel a warper was about to warp me away from its protecting cage even though a warper could warp me from witin a smaller vehicle anyway. This feeling of terror was lacking in BZ.
P.S.. The snow stalkers hate flares.
I think we are in total agreement there. Except about the flares, wtf!! Mind freakin' blown. Literally never used the flares haha.
@@CasualGamr it's a game changer, haha. Bone sharks in the OG Subnautica also are scared of the flares. Might even work with other creatures, but I haven't tried.
Btw, another way to neutralize Snow Stalkers is by throwing them those plum-looking fruits (Preston plant or whatever).
@@vladvulcan The Bone Sharks aren't scared of flares, they're attracted to them. Throw a flare to get them away from you. God I hate bonesharks so much, they are the worst Subnautica creature for what a pain in the ass they are. Although the scariest creature in the first Subnautica for me are the crabsquids, I dread going into crabsquid territory and immediately find a nook to hide in and go dark the minute I hear one until I can confirm it's location.
@@heirofaniu the crabsquids are not a big deal. They are also drown to light, and if you turn it off, it's easy to sneak past them. Also, have you forgotten to install the perimeter defense system on your Seamoth? It's easy to zap off any hostile creature that is trying to eat you.
@vladvulcan I usually don't go for the perimeter defense system, I get more mileage out of the Sonar, storage space, depth module, and efficiency module/solar charger. My MO is avoid, evade, escape, and for any other creature that isn't the Crabsquid or the boneshark that strategy works very well, what makes them annoying is their persistence. The difference is that the bonesharks are obnoxiously persistent, the crabsquid is dangerously persistent. I can typically avoid them but if I fuck up and they see me it's a chase.
The writers killed sub zero. They were so concerned with their character everything else seemed to suffer.
Why do we still get protagonists like this despite them being universally hated by everyone? Was Atomic Hearts and Forespoken not enough of a nail in the coffin? People hate loud, cocky protagonists who don’t shut up
Robin really doesn’t talk that much, and she’s definitely not cocky. She honestly might be more interesting if she was. The issue with Robin and Sam is that they don’t really have any actual character traits.
Hey, Atomic Heart protagonist was a tough ass, I liked him. "Crispy critters!" in Russian sounds like "F*cking pies!" which was even more hilarious.
I would normally agree, but atomic hearts protagonist was really fun
@@DuckbusinessmanI can't stand him. He's such a dweeb.
There should be a law against giving the protags of first-person games more than five lines of dialog throughout the game. (Joke)
@@rclaws3230 no i agree, i prefer voiceless characters or characters with little speaking, like master chief. but that doesnt take away my point how i still actually really enjoyed atomic heart
If you look at the size of the Chelicerate compared to the character, its MASSIVE. And yeah, when you can see the size difference it _is_ terrifying... But you don't get to feel that sense of size because of the depth of field. It doesn't have that unsettling serpent-like body shape and strangely humanoid face like the Reaper, so it just lacks that aspect of fear the Reaper excelled at.
"Strangely humanoid face the reaper has"
I've never thought of it that way, that's why it scares me so bad! The Chelly looks a lot like something we could realistically have swimming around here on earth, minus the massive size. But the Reaper... It's unfamilar. It looks like a real animal but at the same time, we have nothing to tie it back to. Wow!
I think what was the hearth of subnautica on the first game was, basically, the ambience, when you feel you are not in a alredy known ambient, you feel scared, cautious, you feel the need to be wary of every step (or in this case, swim) you make, afterall, you feel it could be your last.
I think one of the greatest proofs of that for me is when you show someone who played subnautica at least once, and show them I don't know, the music that mostly plays on a biome, this person could easily says every aspect of the scene, without even blinking.
If you show me a picture of a biome, I remember the soundtrack/ambience music, the creatures, plants, and everything basically. Because every thing in this is memorable, especially if its being put together, So, for me its the ambience that counts, because with a good ambience, you create a (mostly) good experience. In below zero, most of its biomes were... "shallow"...
I think on BZ some biomes I can recall everything, but not for the same purpose of subnautica, the exact opposite, because theres not much things to really remember, or in other situations, theres not much of cool of that made the ambience good.
Probably for me the best comparison to make is when you go to a completly new local that have "points" of your interest, you go there, you are on a ambient you don't know much, so you are aware of its details, when theres much of what you alredy see (like in a city with not much different roads or neighborhood), you probably don't remember so much, but when is different or unique, you remember almost every detail. I recall this aspects and can compare to subnautica 1.
i agree with the ambience being one of the most important things as well but the biomes i dont agree with. im more on the side of due to it being a fear of water game having no one to talk to ever creates a sort of anxiety. BZ has a lot of talking and straight up other characters to talk to. you dont feel alone in a scary nearly empty ocean which is the main reason subnautica did so well and BZ didnt. your not alone you know your not alone and due to that the ambience doesnt feel all that scary or impactive or intense.
The composer/sound designer that worked on Subnautica is an absolute master at his craft, sadly enough he made an inappropriate joke on the twatters and Unknow World leans to the Far Left thus he got shown the door without mercy. New guy did an 'ok job on B-0 but they where not nearly as good as the previous guy, it wasn't memorable or impactful. I hope they now realize they had gold in their hands and flushed it down the toilet by kicking him out over a f-ing joke.
The best comparison to illustrate this with is: The first time you find your way to the bloodvine area where the ambient music blend to a heart-pulsing beat that immediately fills you with dread and the eerie feeling of something bad about to happen {Sub1}, versus the whatever its called field-with-many-vents-of-purple-gas because the area is littered with vents spewing purple gas {BZ}.
@@frostreaper1607 same thing applies to the writing (although the writer probably saw it coming and quit)
Below Zero is a mini-release, as it was going to be a subnautica dlc but was too big for that, it's not the sequel. Subnautica 2 is in development currently.
I still can’t believe that the guys who made natural selection, the half life mod and game, turned out to make this, still throws me off
It's an amazing journey, isn't it. Show how relevant the modding community has become.
@@CasualGamrI mean, Valve literally made their entire gaming empire that dominates the PC gaming landscape from modded games.
I hope the subnautica team is taking notes for the new game
How do we get them to watch this- like actually.
Haha I do sometimes wonder whether the devs dip into the realms of youtube, most of the time I suspect not 😂
Theyve already taken notes@@RyanShaw-lb4ie
@@CasualGamrthey did for jacksepticeye so i reckon they do watch YT
Haha first I just need another 30.3 million subscribers - maybe I’ll just give it some time 🙏😄
I can't believe how fundamentally they misunderstood the success of their first game. It would be different if they simply said "we're pivoting focus", but it would be disingenuous considering they clearly tried to mimic the first game by having scary elements at all. Ironically they tried to lean in harder to what they thought those elements were and ended up creating antagonists instead of natural predators.
I couldn't stand that it constantly forced control away from you to show you an annoying cutscenes of a leviathan or shark biting or killing you. They patched out the shark animation after a while, but left in all the others. And because you're constantly forced into their paths like you mentioned, you see it a lot. So the frequent encounters are just maddening. It's actually scarier in the first game where you don't necessarily die on contact and even if you get hit, you can still try to run. The only cutscene you get is when the reaper grabs your seamoth from what I remember, but it's because you have a chance to get away and it creates tension while the hull strength diminishes the longer you're in it's grasp.
A note on the music, it's not bad in itself, but I feel like the composer wasn't experienced in creating tracks for such an open ended ambient game. That, or the devs didn't direct him properly, or didn't implement his stuff well. I find the tracks extremely repetitive, like I was listening to a playlist of songs instead of ambient music and it got really annoying, especially since they just never stop. I started dreading specific zones because the music is so strictly tied to them and the soundtrack is so...musical. I built my base in the vent garden zone and that track is an example of one with a clear start, middle and end. So it feels like it's looping constantly. I don't know why they didn't at least opt for long moments of ocean ambience before the track starts again. The game improved when I finally turned the music volume to 0.
yeah it does feel like a direction/implementation issue - Prunty is a fantastic composer, and I do think that he would have worked well for subnautica, but the music was implemented pretty poorly. Prunty makes some amazing ambience, and there is even a lot in the soundtrack (I would say like 2/3 of the OST is ambient), but it feels like they didn't use them much in favour of the musical stuff, and didn't give much time in between tracks. pretty much any open, ambient game (Minecraft comes to mind) has some space for the player to be in silence.
One thing I will add, the alien structures that served as beacons, and even AL-AN's ship, they both gave off "unofficial" vibes, I don't know why. Just felt wrong? Especially the one with the yellow boxes, fauna examiner or whatever.
For sure, I mean they just didn't seem organically in your path, so you never felt excited by finding them. You just followed the map marker, saw it, heard a fairly irrelevant dialogue update from Alan and left. Seems more like a cheap mod than a structured narrative, but then I'm biased on this one 😊
@@CasualGamr definitely! I like the game overall not for its own qualities but because it is a Subnautica game, and while I hope that the next one can recapture the feeling of the first one, part of me wonders if that’s even possible? Maybe there will only ever be one Subnautica 😔
It's cause they're just IN the environment, you are directed to them directly, when you find them they aren't even clearly artificially put into the world by aliens, they are dropped in by the devs, compare that to the first game where even when you had a random ion cube in a cave, there was structures around it, like it was a research spot, it had a shield keeping out water, there was supports, lights, and a platform, Here there is a random ass generator in a cave made from ice with a dead alien in it that NO ONE FOUND, a whole ass dead alien body thousands of years old, (something we didn't see in the first), and no one decided 'the fuck is this arm?'
I started playing BZ back when early access first dropped. Maybe I shouldn't have, because I found myself invested in where that first story was going. When it was scrapped completely, I was a little disappointed. It could have had such a powerful twist involving Sam or Alterra. But I continued, anyway. The new story, by release, was lackluster because it lays everything out for you but doesn't make much sense. Why isn't Alterra still down there? Yes, the Ice Worms caused them issues, but one woman seemed to traverse the area just fine with minimal tools. Yes, MM and Sam sabotaged the place, but not enough to discourage the megacorp from coming back in with firepower on top of researchers. That's not the game they wanted to create--an Avatar-like savior vs. the company.
The game winds up having two resolutions, one for Robin's mission and one for ALAN, and neither felt like they were that urgent to finish nor were they satisfying when I did. IMO ALAN's revival should have been the focus, and it should have been more dire. Like, we gotta go because Alterra's on their way. We gotta go because MM found out about ALAN and his history and she's after us. We gotta go because the entire area where the virus was being extracted is unstable. Something.
My biggest beef with BZ, other than the narrative, is how easy it is for a Subnautica veteran. Survival was never a worry. There was only one moment when leviathans were a threat, and that was only because I didn't have the defense system yet. Even in the area with the most Shadow leviathans, shocking them let you get away practically unscathed. Oxygen vs. the cave systems was a bigger problem. The Ice Worm was just annoying. Not dangerous. Not lethal. Annoying. I stopped bothering with the Snow Fox after one venture through its territory. The Prawn suit was slower on land but 10x less obnoxious than driving the SF and getting bonked off of it.
All that said, I don't hate BZ. I've played through it to completion twice, and I'll probably do it again. I just wish there were more to it than what we got.
I would love to be able to say that I got stuck in with the early access as I am a big fan. But the biggest part of enjoying Subnautica was going in utterly blind, so I did it again for Below Zero and I don't regret that. Still, this is the first I've heard of the alternate storyline, and it does sound like they dumbed down the space sci fi element for something a bit more wholesome with an edge. And I just don't think it really worked out. Would have loved some more Altera backstory too but it was all just lacking. And I couldn't agree more about the Snowfox, I only used it to get through the worms, the rest of the time I just ran around... swearing as I did it haha
@@CasualGamr In the first story, Sam is alive and communicating with Robin from the space station (which you can still see in the game). They were also both very British lol. The whole thing with ALAN still happens, but Robin hides this information from Sam. ALAN is even a little hostile (which is where those lines in one of the juke box tracks come from in which he sounds very... malicious). You're tasked with using the rocket at Delta (exactly where the communication array is now) to send samples of the enzyme to the space station, which directs you out to the lily pad area. There, you get to see grown sea emperors just living life and being enormous sweethearts. I wish they'd left at least one there in the full release. ALAN still talks to Robin from time to time and they start developing a rapport. If I remember right, discovering the giant frozen leviathan led to some lines speculating what Alterra was trying to do with Kharaa--and Sam was a little shaken by the implications. The story didn't get much further than that before it was scrapped.
it's soooo sad the plot changed. it was so interesting and unique having Sam be alive and have someone talking to you compared to original Subnautica. ugh so disappointing. plus I loved the original voice actors. everything about the early access was so promising and then it just.... deflated.
@@CasualGamr As someone who VASTLY preferred the original version:
- In the original version of the game that space station you see at the beginning now was in the sky all the time, it was Delta and was where the still-alive team was but they were stuck up there because of the meteor shower.
- At the start of the game Robin was on ground duty alone and cut off from the others with the weather and after a short walk around sequence an avalanche destroyed your habitat. You were trapped at a frozen pool when a structure collapsed into it and cracked it while you watched and you had to dive in the hole it created to escape, thus leaving you alone and tool-less. (A sequenced I LOVED and mourn deeply) The habitat is still in the game (last I checked) but no longer has a purpose.
- The team at the station were sending down supply drops, as it was the best they could do. These drops were spawned in the sky and you could watch them fall and be there when they hit, including the initial pod whose location was randomized like in the first game. These were used to get you in new zones, as they were said to contain beacons and were added as waypoints as soon as they spawned. They used to have parachute icons and these cool silver boom-box looking models that are no longer in the game to the best of my knowledge. I believe most were converted to just "abandoned Alterra supplies" locations.
- Delta functioned as a landmark like the Aurora in the first game. Many a time I surfaced and spun the camera around "Where are you guys?" I found it useful for getting my bearings and there was just something reassuring about knowing the team was still safe up there. The game really doesn't feel the same without it. Presumably it was removed because of the added weather system and required changes to the skybox. (I am pretty darn sure it's not there in the new skybox at all, just the opening scene, but it has been a while since I played. At the very least it doesn't have the presence it did.)
- Oh, and the on-land segment was MUCH larger initially, believe or not. I spent hours marking my path with those LED light sticks and I don't think I ever covered it all. Sadly, they condensed it into the worst parts. There used to be places that *required* snowfox jumps to clear gaps, so there was a reason you couldn't just PRAWN-stomp around ignoring both the cold weather suit and the snowfox, like you can now.
- I have never completed the release version, despite having 179 hours in it, because I get about 3/4th in and just blah. The original version, which didn't even HAVE an ending, I played for 150+ hours and loved every minute. Basically, when they changed the intro to something so bland (by sci-fi standards) and removed the station, making the team past tense and removing the conversations between sisters, I lost most of my interest in the game. It's crowded, annoying, and the sound effects are jarring in the wrong way. It feels less like surviving at sea and more like surviving a shopping trip to Walmart on a holiday.
@@fyxationin addition to that, as far as I remember someone was about to betray you shortly before they changed the story.
I think it was supposed to be Jeremiah and you nearly even met him in one moment, but he saw you coming over the camera monitors and went away, avoiding you.
They could have done so much more with the story...
Jeremiah stealing the virus for Alterra, bringing it to the station, it breaking out, ready to kill everyone on it...and in the end probably mutating and leading to the events in Natural Selection. You trying to stop that while secretly working with your sister, sending her the enzyme sample so Alterra doesn't notice you are working against them...which was highly dangerous. Yet you aren't telling her about Alan...but probably would have needed his help to succeed in saving your sister...or at least other lives. For now, because we all know what Alterra would do to get their hands on that virus to use it as a weapon...
I was so infested in the old story that it was the biggest disappointment for me when they changed it to such a boring one.
The anecdote about the reaper is about my experience, even though I already knew it existed because of Twitch. When I first played I went to the back of the ship and that thing came at me, game over. It was still very startling even though I knew it existed already. I think the Reaper wins the horror contest because it has a face that looks vaguely human.
In my opinion man I couldn't have said it any better. And as for Co-Op I would like it in the game but it would be best as an optional feature not forced.
Many should listen to this guy because he had me immersed in to his point and rant thereof
Haha my mates would crack up if they saw this - it’s a good day indeed if my rants can capture the attention of anyone, especially for 45 mins 😄 thanks for taking the time, I actually really enjoyed that comment 🙏
- Failed to revive the mystery that made the first game great.
- Poor Story
- Annoying / Chatty Characters
- Lack of Immersion
- Obvious Political Undertones and Overt Political Design Choices.
- Bad Design Choices Made for Plot Convince
- Voiced Protagonist
- Not creating more Large and Massive creatures
(Personally would still like some kind of harpoon gun for the mech)
The unknown is scarier than the known, and the horror was gone once this was abandoned.
Exactly. Pretty much hit the nail on the head, I think.
Subnautica immersed me so well I frequently found myself holding my breath while diving underwater, only breathing again when I returned to my seamoth or prawn suit.
There was an announcement recently about Subnautica 2 (that seems to be their official internal title, suggesting they might see Below Zero as a spinoff rather than main series), and let it slip that it will take place on a different ocean planet. The Last Bacon did a video on it.
Roadmap was hinted at for late this year (2024) with high hopes for Early Access in early 2025.
Where did they say that it was a different planet?
@@wyqtor I think it was in the leak, now that I think about it, but interviews have been occurring that also confirmed that yes, it is on a different planet. I don't have any links to it.
Like Spiderman and Miles Morales. Tbh I want the new game to be set on the same planet cuz I still want more of the void and above everything I want a new huge Leviathan like the Gargantuan leviathan or the Frozen Leviathan they need to give us a leviathan like that tbh not something frozen or dead but alive
II completed Below Zero last week. I didn't get the Prawn Suit, I didn't add a single module to my sea truck, I didn't build an expansive base. All the milestones I had in Subnautica were missing here.
Like there was any good spots (or room) to build a base besides spawn or the big icebergs anyway
You missed a lot
Having a fear of the depths like many people, I decided to play Subnautica exclusively in VR.
I reached the reaper.
I haven't been able to play in months.
I resemble poultry.
LMAO
I was one of the early access testers and I can say 100% where the game failed (for me anyways) was how devoid of life the game felt in regards to story, let me explain. My experience in the first game was one of excitement and terror, wanting to learn all I could, find out the story but terrified to go deeper and deeper, and while the first games story isn't fed to you, you DO have to look for PDA's, read scanner results and so on, it was nonetheless there so that by the time the credits rolled you felt complete and happy.
The second game by comparison was saturated with story which on the surface SOUNDS good, until you know the truth behind it. Early in the games access there was a tie to the first game in which the baby leviathans you released in the first game would show up in the deep waters and you could obtain the enzyme from them to deal with the khara on the surface instead of them just handing it to you as they do in the live version. It was cute seeing them more grown up, it felt like a full circle moment but it was pulled when a new director (I believe) who didn't like the story and gutted it, rewriting the ENTIRE story to focus more on the protagonist and her "woman power", their words, not mine. The first rendition of the story had Robin more coy and sheepish, certainly more quiet as she explored around and interacted with people and cared more feeling the depth of both your actions, but your sisters and everyone else too, hell her sister was ALIVE in the first rendition of the story, talking to you from a relay station. All of that went out the window and that's why now she's so overly chatty and quippy, they wanted her to be front and center, but by doing that they missed the whole point of making the world the focus and they had done before. I have generally written off below zero because it feels hollow and yet bloated at the same time, so often companies feel the need to reinvent the wheel and its not always needed
PS. I STRONGLY suggest you look at the cut content page on the wiki, you'll get a better how about what I'm talking about and how much they GUTTED this game. Everything you said was on the money though so great video :)
That is such a fantastic and rich comment with some very helpful tips and insight - thank you so much for that. I will definately be taking a look at at that and I personally really appreciate you taking the time to type all that out 🙏
I feel the only time that the original Subnautica gives you a forced story item is when the ship is coming to rescue you and that event happens. The first time you play you're there, excited to see someone else and boom. But, this gives you the push to explore that base, which gives you the information on the other bases and where you are pushed to explore. In BZ, there's literally a map that shows you where each base it.... Sure, you have to explore the are to find them, but the original just gives you a depth and goes, figure out how to get there.
One of the biggest hits for me was the sound design. I can’t remember a single sound any of the creatures made in below zero. They are so generic. Whereas in the first game I can distinctly imagine the sounds of reapers, ghost levitations, sea dragons, warpers, crab squids, reef backs, and so much more. The reaper scream/roar still gives me chills. It sounds so angry and its incredibly loud. Hearing that iconic roar in the distance skyrockets my heart rate every time. Nothing like that to be heard in below zero.
They kicked the original sound producer, unfortunately he was saying a lot of racist stuff on his twitter so they had to. I think it took at least 70% of the games ambience when they changed producers
@@brehh1337 hopefully they try someone new for the sound design in the next game. I actually really like the music the new producer made, but we need someone that can make more unique sounds.
Feels like Sweet Baby Inc consulted on Below Zero
Below Zero felt like I was playing a chick flick movie. They really missed the mark on this one.
THANK YOU! Talking to the community about these issues is like talking to seagulls.
Whom are videos like this addressed to, if not the community?
Haha. Wait..
Hey I'm not a seagull !
im terrified of the ocean, and the first game did wonders for that. even watching and playing the game through its development, even knowing exactly what i was going to see, the game was scary and i loved that.
the second game? the scariest part for me was the lilypad zone. not because of the atmosphere or the creatures. i just hated the textures of the plants and the thoughts of actually being there.
this video puts into words what i have been struggling to explain. the second game just doesn't add up to the first, and it doesnt help that when it reached full release it was so buggy i couldn't even finish it. my save file bugged, and i would've had to restart my entire file just to see the ending. it wasn't worth it. i never finished the game.
You didn't miss much with the ending. Honestly, I would just jump on TH-cam and watch a playthrough, there are a couple out there for sure. The final segment has got some of the best music in the game, a fun kind of five minute interactive animation, and then a pretty outlandish flex as you cast your eyes upon something that I don't think they ever should have been included in the game myself. But for the sake of completion,in case it is relevant in the next title, I would absolutely watch it. Not playing it is a blessing in disguise, the final segment of Below Zero is so lame.
@@CasualGamr (SPOILS)
honestly, i really hate how they just went "pfft of course you follow the alien what else are you gonna do", like they were trying to oneup the main game's "you free her and she plays with her children, then she dies." with something like "you free him *and save him* *and follow him* to his homeland"
Very good breakdown! I'd like to add another layer. When I first started Subnautica, it pretty quickly became clear that i needed a map. So I took a sheet of checkered paper, a pencil, a triangle ruler & a pair of compassess & started charting. And that became amazingly rewarding, triangulating beacons, scetching out & naming biomes in curved strokes, marking points of interest, placing down an X-to-mark-the-spot. It was glorious. True discovery. A real, intricate, hand-drawn map, complete with "HERE BE DRAGONS". The Z-axis didn't matter, I just had to mark depth when it became an obstacle.
When I first stumbled upon an entrance to the Lost River, it immediately became obvious that I needed another layer. Another sheet of paper. Which, voilà, aligned perfectly.
Below Zero discouraged me to do this. In cartography, outlining shorelines is pretty much the most tedious & frustrating thing, because shorelines are of fractal nature. Throw in dozens of islands & peninsulae, & the task becomes nigh impossible. Cram in countless caves & an emphasis on vertical map design... well, I may be a nerd, but I'm not crazy. Thus, Below Zero took away a whole level of meta-experience that I'd enjoyed in Subnautica so much.
Man I loved reading your comment so much. What the hell, you plotted the map by hand, that’s amazing!! It never even occurred to me. On a second run, I tried using the map which is available on Nexus mods. As it happens, it’s one of the best mods I’ve ever used it’s so well designed and incorporated into the PDA with a toggle switch. And that’s the problem, it’s very hard to go back to not having it, which shatters much of the mystique that comes from returning to an area but never being quite sure if there’s a dark corner you missed or a crevice forgot about. Making it by hand represents everything I love about SubNautica - it was more of an immersion simulator than a game in some ways 🤷♂️
@@CasualGamrI'm playing SN1 for the first time and very tempted to make a paper map. The decision not to have an in game map was very deliberate by the designers and I want to respect that.
When I first played I searched up a map of the game online and took a screenshot of it and it was amazing, tried the same for Below Zero and could not get a good map
Great take. Well done on this, it's the only video I've seen come close to a documentary about Subnautica.
Thanks! I didn't intend it to end up so big but I guess I had a lot to say haha, but I appreciate you describing that way for sure!
I think the contrast between these two games is a PERFECT example of "show, don't tell."
This is such a great video. I hope I'm not commenting too late for you to see this.
My buddy told me about Subnautica and even bought it for me, but wouldn't tell me a single thing about it. I almost quit a couple times in the first 10 hours or so, because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. There really isn't much direction, which of course is now one of my favourite things about the game.
Then I discovered the Jellyshroom caves, and thought to myself, this has to be where I'm supposed to go. I had nothing more than a seaglide at the time. So I spent the next 25 hours collecting titanium to build hundreds, if not thousands of oxygen pipes to get myself down into the jellyshroom caves. I explored the entirety of the jellyshroom caves with the basic oxygen tank, a seaglide and my oxygen pipes. So many times it was a mad dash back to the pipe to get air. I'd get turned around and panic, or get hit by the big snake things in there. It was so exhilarating. I don't think I've ever had more fun and felt more immersion in a game.
Of course when I told my buddy this he just laughed and laughed. I did eventually realize that basically you just want to keep going deeper, and oxygen pipes were not a sustainable way of doing that.
I'll always remember my time in the jellyshroom caves as an awesome time of exploration and terror. God I love this game.
The only reason I even wanted to play Below Zero was for more of the alien content, but once I bought the game myself I stopped playing when I knew most of my upcoming tasks would be taking place on land. I was disappointed so many people wanted co-op, part of the reason I got lost in the original was because I was alone. I want more biomes, creatures and stuff like the seamoth and Cyclops. The few stills they released for the game seem promising, so...fingers crossed.
You haven't played this game it seems from your post*, most of the game does in fact not take place above water, but they did put much more time into making the land areas for adding some exploration to some story beats and just make land better and less* boring compared to the first game
In order of likelihood* you'll spend time there:
Much of the time you will be either in
1. Underwater cave systems
2. Ocean floor
3. Land (which much of the time is connected to sprawling underwater cave systems)
4. Open ocean
*Edit: Fixed typos
@@arioamin
Dude said "most of *my upcoming tasks* would be taking place on land." not most of the game.
@@DynamiteRaven kinda funny right? That guy typed all that showing he is capable of writing something. If only he could read.
That message I replied to, regarding 'most of my upcoming tasks', implied that the game does take place mostly on land when it doesn't. My reply is still valid@@DynamiteRaven
co-op has been said to be completely optional, no one is forcing coop onto you
Meeting the reaper for the first time is one of the best moment in gaming history, not only for me, but for so many people too
It certainly was for me!!
At least the next game is being labeled as Subnautica 2 instead of the 3rd. Further establishing BZ as a small spin off sequel while the next game will give us a better subnautica experience worthy of a sequel.
Also based on recent news. co-op will be optional not a mandatory aspect of subnautica 2. It will remain a single player experience initially.
Both Subnautica and Below Zero's horror in a way reminds me of a first person open world shooter series called Stalker. The first time you encounter a controller, bloodsucker, burer, chimera, pseudogiant, poltergeist, snork, etc. it is terrifying. Some are rare enough encounters in important places you have to visit to progress the story and remain relatively rare throughout. These enemies like the bloodsucker or controller especially use different tactics from the other creatures in the game that can throw you off and make you scared despite having a fully automatic weapon, night vision, and grenades. You always move cautiously into every new area because a bloodsucker can literally stalk you through the map and set up unscripted ambushes, all while being able to turn 99% invisible. They'll wait for you to turn your back, look in your inventory pack, loot a body, or even wait for you to take damage from the environment before moving for the kill. They will coordinate attack with other bloodsuckers if they are around. That is the subnautica style of horror, the actual fear when the attack happens is nothing compared to the suspense and dread beforehand.
But then there are enemies like the snorks. They are fairly dangerous and scary, but you deal with them so often they just become a chore when you encounter them. They set up ambushes but aren't subtle about it. You see their hyper selves jumping around in a field likely before they ever reach you. Or they are put in tight caves where their ambushes work but then their long leaping lunge attack isn't as effective. Certain enemies you become desensitized to, or they are incongruent with the moment in time of the gameplay or story, or they're in the wrong location.
I'll play subnautica 3 if they focus more on the variety in wildlife and biomes, but even then I worry that their vision of the IP is different than the audience that ended up loving the games. I think the atmosphere and dread of the first game was almost entirely unintended.
Actually the opposite. Thrill of the unknown was the intentional, pervasive metric through which every design choice was made. Everything was evaluated by that yard stick. You can listen to Charlie Clevland talk about it online. But yeah, I did not have the same sense at all in Below Zero. I am completely with you that they had better make sure subnautica 2 (3) is back to the focused design of the first game.
What do you think about multiplayer? I want it badly but I've heard people say it will kill immersion which I can understand
@@4tdaz I literally don't care either way as long as the rest of the game does not suffer for it. I don't play any multi-player games. Though if other people want to play subnautica multi-player I'm also not against it, I don't think it would ruin the game. I just don't have any online friends nor friends that play video games, so multi-player is a non factor to me.
@@deaj8450 makes sense.
@@4tdazLittle bit of a necro-reply but the only reason companies include co-op these days is to force peer-pressure purchases and follow-the-leader sales numbers.
@@rclaws3230 Cynical take but perhaps not wrong. Some companies aren't money first though. Some are fun first and they know the support will come.
I get the idea behind the sea truck, being modular and customisable is really interesting, but in reality it just means that you optimise it. With the speed penalty that means you make it as cramped and functional as possible, which loses so so much of the charm. Technically the huge size of the cyclops is a downside, there's a lot of space that you could cut to make it more functional, but you CAN'T, it's a huge impressive beast of a submarine with a whole bridge and unique controls and you are not allowed to optimise the fun out of it.
Also the sea moth is just a hundred times cuter than the truck, fight me
I won’t fight you, I swear you just lifted this telepathically from my notes 🤣 literally I agree 100% with everything you just said ☝️
I was going to write out a long comment about how I feel about subnautica and below zero but honestly, you covered most of it. I do have two points that you covered on but I feel like took away from below zero for me the most.
1. You were absolutely right about the caves being too narrow. At some points, I remember having to ditch my vehicle because it was less effort than trying to squeeze it through some of the gaps. It also made the leviathans seem small as well. If I remember correctly, the leviathans are actually much smaller than the ones from subnautica. I remember encountering the leviathan in the crystal caves. I remember thinking that it looked smaller but maybe it was just me. Then it attacked me... over and over and over again as I tried mining for resources. Not only was this creature smaller and therefore less scary, but the constant attacks lowered my fear and turned it into annoyance. Like you said as well, the low visibility was a HUGE reason the reapers were scary in the first game. Hearing the roar for the first time and having no idea where they were. Finding the leviathan in the crystal caves and being able to see it from across the other side of the cave sucked out the mystery and wonder that I enjoy when it comes to discovering new creatures.
2. Progressing the story in below zero felt like a chore. In subnautica, you were able to make the seamoth, a few upgrades and you could rock with that until you needed the prawn suit. It was hours and hours of gameplay with just the seamoth alone. When it was time to go on land in below zero, having to make an entirely different suit and vehicle was so tedious. The islands in subnatuica worked because there wasn't much to explore there. You could be there for one in game day and that was that. In below zero, you're forced to spend such a good chunk of the game on land that it felt so annoying. You mentioned the weird controls and I whole heartedly agree. I do NOT like the land controls, but I also think there shouldn't have been that much important story on land in the first place. Subnautica was so well liked because it was finally an underwater survival game that didn't suck. Why take the water out of the game? If I wanted to play a land survival game with chunky mechanics, I'd play Ark.
Both of those being said, I did not finish the story for below zero. I got as far as to get the first body part for Alan and decided it wasn't worth my time. I actually didn't know where the body parts were at all and I looked them up. It's hard to describe the pit that formed in my stomach when I saw they were in more small caves. Trying to finish the story felt like more of a chore than something I had fun doing.
I also want to mention the small details in subnautica that really made me love it. There were two parts in the game where I audibly gasped (other than my scream when first attacked by a reaper). The first was when the Aurora blows up. There were a few warnings from the PDA before it happened but I was really blown away how well done it was. The second was when the alien building shot down the landing space craft. That one shook me so much, I stood there for another two minutes trying to figure out what just happened. It's moments like those that make subnautica memorable.
I preferred the first game to the second as well (having played it all the way through a number of times compared to 1.5 times with Below Zero due to never caring to go back into the land section), and I really see a few large reasons.
1) The sense of pioneering discovery. Subnautica really felt like being the first person to survive rediscovery of a long lost civilization, while Below Zero felt a bit less notable in that you were effectively just making another discovery while following up on the first.
2) The perceived chance of rescue. The number of very recent human facilities that already exist where you are going in Below Zero (except for the very last bit of caves) makes it feel like Alterra could return at any time. In Subnautica, the Sunbeam arriving felt miraculous, and losing it felt like being set back years.
3) The goal and stakes. In Subnautica, you were trying to survive and escape against ever increasing and unknown odds up to the point of finding a cure for a civilization ending plague. In BZ, while you did try to survive and learn about the plague and the civilization that was lost through ALAN, the overarching goal was to find out what happened to your sister and determine just how evil the evil megacorp really was.
How does a video of this scale NOT have a few million views.
This video is very thorough and descriptive, severely underated, you deserve to be more popular with the massive amount of effort I’m sure you put into this
Great work, subbed immediately. Keep on going with that thorough investigation and journalism about (any) topics :)
Thanks, bud! The sub and words of wisdom are both thoroughly appreciated!
you’re one of the first people i’ve heard fully well articulate what made the first subnautica so good. great job!
Only TWO reasons why SBZ (Subnautica Below Zero) failed:
GREED
&
DEI
They took scraps from the cutting-room floor when editing SOG (Subnautica Original Game) and tried to turn it into a $30 game. BIG FAIL!! They should've stuck to their original plan of making it DLC for $5-15, but Nooooo...someone got it in his head that "Heyyy, SOG was a runaway success, let's bilk our fans since they loved it so much the first time around" Booooo-Hisssssss!
And then came the 'woke' DEI garbage that NONE of us asked for. When you have to make sure that players know that 80% of the characters are gay/bi and that men are bad, good-for-nothing, weaklings to She-Man type workers and the only type of 'good' workers for the cause are women, then you've added another FAIL onto your greed.
And let's not forget the bait-and-switch, where ALOT of us blindly bought the second game, hearing about the original story they had planned, thinking we would be getting more Subnautica goodness only to have the rug pulled out from under us with major story changes and the hiring of a DEI, YA, activist writer who had no clue about the Subnautica uinverse or its lore.
All I know is...I WON'T be buying the next game. I don't trust UWE at this point.
Just the start was already screaming wokeness, its always the same. Something is touch by it and become a worst version of the original
Amazing video man, very good watch on my break.
Making breaks better makes life better, happy to oblige my friend 😊
one of tthe best video essays ive seen dude incredibly entertaining keep this up bro
It's wild to say coop would destroy a game like this when most survival games make the choice to have coop features because being able to play with at least one person usually makes the experience better. After all the subnautica coop mod is freaking amazing and feels better because you can use the cyclops seamoth combo in more fun ways.
I am very scared about subnautica 2 because I want it to be as good as the original so bad but below zero has absolutely ruined my faith in unknown worlds and made me think that it might have just been dumb luck that they made the first one so good. Subnautica is my favourite game of all time and it deserves that spot but it feels like they don’t understand what made the game so good. I can only hope that they use BZ as a lesson and understand why the decisions they made worsen the experience and change them in the next game
I guess how the next game turns out will prove whether Subnautica was indeed lightning in a bottle or Below Zero was simply a stop gap before the next defining entry🤷🏻 I am psyched for the next game and desperately hope it's the second, but I guess we will see 😊
I think it'd be really hard to replace Simon considering how good his work was
That was an amazing video, and I am speechless to see you only have 2k subscribers, I was sure, from the editing, the script and everything that you would be a big channel!
Well, I subbed, hope to see your channel explode in popularity, you totally deserve it sir!
I have 3 play throughs on Subnautica and 2 on Below Zero.
3 on the first game, because it was so much fun and fascinating. The world, the exploration, the fear...
2 on the second game, because on the first run my endgame was somehow bugged and I couldn't progress at the very end of the game. So I had to play everything again from the start.
What absolutely terrified me playing sub nautica was either when I thought I was safe inside my seamoth or whatever and then the squid would teleport me out and my heart would stop because my protective shield was gone and I was vulnerable
The major thing I noticed about Subnatica 1vs2 is how much you can interact with the sea life, like in small ways thanks to the pda. not like if you feed stalkers they will bring you metal scrap because so will sea monkeys, but the deeper stuff, like crabsquid react to light and will attack anything that has one, so if you don't want them to attack you use a seamoth and turn it's lights off when near them and they wont bug you unless you get too close. or my favorite is with the reaper, if you have a peeper on hand it will take it instead of attacking you which makes them a lot easier to deal with. but in below zero, there is no way to get around the leviathans or other threats but to just go faster. which really defeats the point of making a character who is a zeno biology major of some kind who loves finding out about every single thing about every alien animal, but just forgets that too, for some reason.
Below Zero is a mini-release, as it was going to be a subnautica dlc but was too big for that, it's not the sequel. Subnautica 2 is in development currently.
@@BlackisticYT just because it was "supposed" to be a DLC doesn't mean anything when it was released as a full game. not to mention it is a sequel in timeline, since it happens some number of year after the first, but also since it continues the story. just because Subnatica 2 was announced doesn't mean that below :zero is any less a sequel. it just doesn't feel that way since it went through like 3-4 reboots while being made, which makes my point about some parts being hollow compared to the first a bit more valid. tho sad.
@@dragunkod Your response is quite random, as below zero is essentially a spinoff, once again, not a sequel and never was intended to be.
@@BlackisticYT then why does it cost the same as the main game. but you know what, the fact you want to nitpick at the fact I short handed subnautica below zero as subnautica 2, even though it was release after the first one, and it is the continuation of the story of the planet in game. just goes to show you just wanted to complain. have fun being miserable.
@@dragunkod The reason for said pricing is called capitalism!
I've platinumed both games twice now on ps4 and ps5 and I will always come back to the original if only for the music. I'll never forget the first time I entered the inactive lava zone and those thrums that vibrate your ears it's just amazing. Below zero both times was only a grind to get through. The threats are not even threats and are only an obstacle. I'll likely play through below zero again when the third releases but I won't play it for long I don't see myself stopping to look around at the scenery as much as I do in the original.
Superb essay, really well considered and nicely edited to match the narration, well done and thank you.
Immediate Sub and Like.
I feel lucky that I played below zero first and was able to enjoy it for what it was. And then play the original and feel like it was the vastly improved sequel.
Quick note: Below Zero is a mini-release, as it was going to be a subnautica dlc but was too big for that, it's not the sequel. Subnautica 2 is in development currently.
Your analysis is spot on, and put into words several things I wasn't able to really articulate for myself before :D
One thing I didn't hear you mention, though, but which really diminished my enjoyment of Below Zero as well, is how easy it is to miss out on or diminish several of the story beats (specifically some brought through dialogue). You can really shoot yourself in the foot by focusing on figuring out what happened to Sam before you encounter Alan. A focus that seemed logical to me, since that's the reason you even went to the planet, right? The relevant land areas were also easily accessible and there wasn't anything that really made it apparent that you 'weren't supposed' to go there yet. And I was half expecting following that lead to organicallly lead me to finding Alan as he, as far as I remember, was an inescapable part of the intro sequence in early access before the story overhaul.
However, the 'clue' that actually leads you to Alan is easily missed or dismissed as 'something to check out later' or 'when you have the tools to explore more safely at depths below 100m'. But ignoring it leads to a hugely unsatisfactory 'resolution', as you can discover, make and administer the antidote without any of the dialogue that includes Alan, and it makes that whole section even more hollow.
Alternatively, you can actually skip large portions of the Sam storyline if you focus on doing Alan's stuff, with only a 'this is the time to finish up any unfinished business as you are about to enter the point of no return' warning to go back and finish it up, which, incidentally, makes it fall totally flat whether you go back to finish it up afterall or decide to igore it, cause clearly Robin didn't care that much about her sister if she was so easily distracted.
The PDAs in Subnautica worked so well because even with the ones that told a story in multiple parts, finding them 'out of order' just added to the mystery and wasn't detrimental, even if the clues within hint at a suggested order of exploration, there are enough other clues and avenues to explore to reach the same end goal.
You, both as the player and Riley, also have no connection or emotional investment to the people the PDAs are about, at least not to start with. So it feels much more organic when you set out to discover what happened to the delgasi survivors, or some of the Aurora crew or the research into a cure.
Furthermore, every single one of these story tidbits added or was linked in some way to the single larger narrative of the infection and its consequences, of which the Aurora crash was just one piece in a larger whole. It's aided even further by the game's general 'progression is made by finding ways to go deeper' rule of thumb, which is evident early on in everything from the clues the PDAs provide to the distribution of resources. The few times the game 'breaks' this 'rule' only tend to reinforce it, until the very end.
In Below Zero, however, it feels as if they tried to mash together and force some lacklustre connections between largely separate storylines. And then smashed them to pieces and randomly scattered those pieces around with little care as to whether the 'intended' order works, or can unintentionally be missed out on, should the player choose to follow one clue over another and go up rather than down when the game itself allows, even encourages, those choices.
Secondly, with both goals vying for attention and locations for story progression sort of alternating between being on ground and underwater, the significance of reaching what should be exploration and story milestones also feels reduced (not to mention how those locations are almost handfed to you either by the map or Alan). Robin's (and consequently the player's) main goal was supposed to be to discover what happened to Sam, yet the game seems to reserve what should be the most impactful locations, like the deepest biomes and the game finale, for what is essentially an inconvenient if unavoidable distratction from said main goal, or something to do after reaching an entirely unsatisfying conclusion to said main goal. Meanwhile, you only really go to those milestone locations for what feels like errands at most. Rather than them feeling truly meaningful or holding actually interesting things to discover, you just go there, do what you have to do, and leave.
So, TL;DR: The Below Zero story was ill-suited for an open-world/exploration type game, poorly executed, and didn't seem to take into account any of the hows and whys that made the original Subnautica narrative work. You can also (unintentionally and entirely by accident) skip entire chunks of important dialogue and story beats in Below Zero by doing things in the 'wrong' order.
Sorry for the wall of text rant XD I just had so many Feelings about this, especially when I originally finished Below Zero, seeing your video brought them all back and they sort of overflowed ;p I hope I at least managed to articulate them somewhat decently, but words are not my strong suit and english not my native language, so who knows...
That is actually what happened to me. I somehow must've missed Alan's signals for a long time because i guess I didn't get close enough for Robin to comment on it. So I went and did quite a few other things, including meeting marguerit and finding the frozen leviathan before even finding Alan. I knew he was part of the game from videos of the older EA versions. But because stumbling over evidence of a survivor or trying to find hints about your Sister on Alterra bases made sense for me from Robins Point of View, I didn't think it would be bad to pursue those Story breadcrumbs over just exploring and thinking that I could just randomly find Alan early on. It feels like a failure of game design that you can miss out on so much pretty easily without intentionally trying to sequence break.
my favorite part of Below Zero was being able to hear the speakers for the music system outside my base muffled from the water. it was a really good attention to detail.
yeah same i was annoyed when they left that out in the update for subnautica 1
One thing I cannot stand is just how the fact that Margerrit managed to survive it by being on a dead Reaper in the Dead zone floating towards sector Zero makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, the time it would have taken for that would have been long enough to finish her off, especially considering she had the green blisters at the time. It was just a big fat excuse by the devs to forcibly connect Below Zero with the first game
Everything else that I have a gripe with, you said in the video.
I hope to see a lot less intelligent life in the next subnautica regardless of where it actually takes place, I also want more really DARK and unwelcoming places like the blood kelp zone, easily my least favorite part of the game was actually the lost river and lava zones because they were so bright it took genuine negligence to ever be caught off guard by anything and goes completely against what you would expect from going deep underwater where the sun no longer shines and where you are crushed by the overbearing atmosphere and literally crushed by the depth without proper vehicles, that's another thing I want to see I don't care HOW reinforced your suit is or HOW good of a rebreather you have you should not be able to get out of your prawn or cyclops with a kilometer and a half of water above your head and be perfectly fine
Edit: I would also like a somewhat different design philosophy with leviathan predators, I think ideally leviathans should be less aggressive but FAR more dangerous, threatening to destroy your cyclops effortlessly, swallow your seamoth whole with you in it, really put the durability of the prawn suit to the test. This philosophy changes the dynamic with them substantially, filling any area with them with a sense of dread as you are terrified of setting them off. It really amplifies the aspect of terror over horror as the frequency of attacks is a lot lower, but the instant and devastating consequences of one leave you terrified of it happening again, and leaves you in a state where you never feel comfortable around them no matter what fancy machinery you have on your side, rather than how they interact with you now where they barely scratch the prawn and can even take a bite out of your unprotected fleshy body and allow you to live and are intentionally programmed to leave you alone after. This would also serve to amplify my point earlier about the consequences for being deep under water. Imagine a common scenario in base subnautica, building the cyclops and making it into a mobile base to take with you to the lost river and cove. Now imagine that leaving the cyclops in the lost river or the cove means instant death, making the cyclops or prawn MANDATORY to be down there. And now imagine that the ghost leviathan can tear holes in the cyclops and sink it almost too fast for you to even react. Being close to it would be pant shittingly terrifying because if you upset it you instantly die, the cyclops is the only thing protecting you from the depth and the only thing keeping you alive so avoiding the leviathan at all costs is crucial to your survival. So now you have to cross the river on the slowest possible speed, silent mode on, all lights off, and just pray it doesn't notice you, the cyclops slowly feeling like a death trap, THAT is terror.
The devs have confirmed the next subnautica game will be optionally coop with the single player experience still in mind.
Because co-op forces peer-pressure purchases. Just look at ass games like BG3 and Palworld.
@@rclaws3230 I don’t really see this as a bad thing. More beneficial to us that we get to play with friends than it is for them.
What was clear is that they were effectively different genres. My biggest objection - and the reason I've never played BZ and only watched others do it - was the loss of the Seamoth, but the bit about not bringing equipment is just completely immersion-breaking for me.
I'll never forget the fear of the first reaper sightings. And on top I cant think of a better introduction.
I had just built the seamoth, was feeling invincible. And needing building mats for my base and looking for new tech to unlock.
I found some stuff to scan in a rather empty and barren biome. Its dark so I have the lights of my seamoth on, I park it back a bit so the headlights cover a good area of where im going to be setting scanning this tech fragment. the scan is maybe 10% from being complete when my seamoth lights flick off to the side. As a gamer I know lighting bugs are a dime a dozen and think nothing of it at all. I had just enough time to have this thought and turn to return to the seamoth to see it being thrown around in the mouth of a leviathan. I had gone in blind as any good gamer does. Didnt even know something like that was in the game. Jump scares are an instant spike in fear then its over. This ware prolonged TERROR! I swam to the surface and all the way back to my life pod. I never once slowed down, I never once looked back. I imagined if I did I would see it following me and that was a second heart attack I was not ready for.
Once I got in the life pod I waited for a while. Just to make sure it wasnt outside and the aggro was gone.
To my surprise my seamoth waypoint was still active meaning it wasnt destroyed. After a good cooldown period, I VERY consciously swam back, got my moth and GTFO!
I'm SO glad that was my first experience and not just seeing it in the distance or something because the fear of that event can never be recreated.
Two things that I personally prefer Subnautica Below Zero to Subnautica are soundtracks and pleasant environment. I like both games' soundtracks, but BZ gives me calmness and relaxation during the break or right after coming back from tough exploration in the deep sea. Sometimes, I'm sitting and watching a pack of Pengling and Pengwing and northern lights in observatory from the surface with the jukebox on. What a nostalgia! Lily Pads and Mirage Machine are my favorite soundtracks of all time in Subnautica universe. Can't wait for the next game.
That's so interesting; I know I butt heads with my friends in a similar way over the original Tomb Raider games (if you've ever played it??). The second was always my favourite, the urban vibe of the environmetns with more action and less puzzles really resonated with me as a kid and I never changed my mind. They all think the first one, with it's lack of soundtrack most of the time, immersive feel and mind bending puzzles make it win out, as do most critics. I think it's just a matter of preference.
I found the songs on the jukebox were cute for sure, and a fun adition, but ultimately felt a bit naff for me and not very believable for 200 years in the future haha. But placing the speakers around your bass was novel and really in keeping with the game's aesthetic. And I loved the sky lights, but I actually preferred the thrilling of feeling of being deep underwater, the structures creaking, your footsteps making shallow metal echos as you plodded about, with beautiful sea monsters and glowing kelp visible beyond the glass. However in every base I have ever built, I always have one compartment at least that sticks out over the water, because the atmosphere when above the waves looking down is just so different.
And the music, oh I cannot tell you how much I preferred the first. I literally listen to the soundtrack in the car sometimes when I feel like taking a quick trip into my memories haha. But for sure, Prunty's tunes were very compitent and sometimes enthralling, just not quite as go go go I guess.
For all of that, I certainly agree with you that I can't wait for the next game!
@@CasualGamr I couldn’t agree more about thrilling feeling, mysterious vibe, and plenty of freedom the first game provided us, it always provokes me to explore more and more. I also love the side story in PDA voice logs of Marguerit’s group I found in each ruined base they lived in (my eyes watered little bit when I found out how their life were ended), and I’m glad seeing her in flesh in BZ.
I’m not a very enthusiastic guy, I don’t usually put myself in the challenge. When I finished some tough exploring or materials collecting, I need a really comfort and safe zone (with sightseeing is even better) around my base, and BZ‘s atmosphere fulfilled me with that. All of that taste came from me love watching documentary since I was a kid(especially about wild life), that’s why I love the peaceful vibe and creatures’ behavior in BZ, it always consoles me just watching them doing their own business with ambient music in background.
I understand why people prefer the first game, because BZ is more like watching movie with a bunch of dialogues and player’s character obviously has her own personality while the first game is like you are the character in that game, and that’s a whole different vibe. But that‘s just it, for me it‘s different to each other not far better than another.
Finally, I never hate Subnautica games so far or being edgy hating BZ just because most people do, or maybe my taste is just weird compare to others I donno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. As far as I know this game’s community and developers are so sweet and wonderful, and I’m truly glad I become a fan of this franchise
P.S. Yes, I played all three of Tomb Raiders, if you meant the reboot version, and the second is my favorite as well. It has the huge improvement from the first one we can easily see without even compare them side by side. But like you said, it’s just the matter of preference.
I loved the Jukebox! I still play Subnautica while listening the Jukebox playlist ❤
Perfect just Perfect you said everything good job
Thanks, very much appreciate the coment 🙏
Nothing else to say except absolutely loved this video. Pacing was great and going back and forth between OG and BW subnautica was an awesome way to format the video. Earned a sub today can't wait to see what else you put out.
I think the most important distinction (posting comment before watching this video btw) between Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero, is that the original Subnautica allowed you to explore the world and as you explored, the storyline naturally progressed. I most certainly wish I could repeat my first play through and the accomplishments, terror and overall learning curve I originally experienced again for the first time, but even knowing the game and story, it’s still such a natural progression from clueless castaway to hardened survivor. Subnautica, even in it’s current state several years after it’s release, is objectively too unpolished to even really be called a Beta release, and regardless, it is still such a beautiful game with a storyline worth playing because it feels like a natural progression even on take two or three. That’s why you really tolerate the lack of polish, because even with fish swimming through the air it’s the story and effort that counts. Heck, we even got a nice throwback with the ending, the construction of the Neptune rocket was a nice way to take us back to the beginning as a final farewell before we launched. And while the original Sub Zero story didn’t interest me nearly as much, it still felt far more naturally progressing than the Sub Zero rewrite and release. The final Sub Zero product was a story progression and an environment that was all set on rails. You weren’t allowed to explore and discover yourself, you were forced down a narrow channel. The characters being voiced also took the freedom and immersion completely away. Everything about the game could have been done better, or it could have simply been an add-on to the original as originally intended. Either way, it failed to capture the essence of the original game and what little it did actually add was pretty insignificant. I honestly had to force myself to try to play and watching play throughs was the only way I could stand seeing the end of the game. As rude as it may sound, it is simply an honest critique.
I rarely comment on youtube videos, but I have to make an exception here. This review was simply amazing. I just played both games after each other's for the first time and all of your points you made about how the second game is being worse I could feel too. If Below Zero was a stand alone game it would be okay, but as a successor of the original Subnautica it just doesn't stand a chance. Thank you for this video, it was nice to see/hear that it wasn't just me who had these points against the second game, let's hope (despite what was shown in the twitter post) the third game will go back to being more like the first game was, instead of trying to continue what the second game gave us!
Thanks so much! These kinds of comments are genuinely the ones that inspire me to dive back in and make another one. Really appreicate the kind words. And yeah I think there are so many people who just played Below Zero casually and gave it a good rating, so it will be interesting to know how much the devs take on the feedback from the more hardcore fans. You never know though, they might pull something special out the bag!
man this video is super well made, very nice!. I think what made Subnautica so great for me, is the exploration. Im the type of guy to explore every bit of every biome before moving to the next, and the original just had more then below zero. Nonetheless both are great games, there is just a clear better one. But that really apllies to any game series.
That pretty much sums up my entire video haha, I completely agree with everything you said.
i just want to say, this is my first video i've watched from you, and within the first 5 minutes i was subscribed. you make such good points, provide quality content and you're also so entertaining- hope to see more from you soon :) for now, take this sub!
(also, i loved the story about your first reaper encounter lol)
Thats so funny, your first experience with the reaper went almost exactly how mine went & I'll never forget it!
man, I had no idea Wyll was so good at writing scripts and analyzing video games.. Guess he has to fill the time in camp with something..
excellent video!
Thanks! Wyll like BG? Lost me there haha, I think my pop culture needs a top up 😊
@@CasualGamr he is a companion character in GoTY, Baldurs Gate 3
They worked so hard so comply with their ESG investors they forgot to give its strong, independent black woman an actual personality
Thank you for this amazing video !! 🤘🏻🔥
Subnautica is by far one of the best games I’ve ever played. I’ve tried getting into Bellow Zero a few times but I never could. The snow and land will never compare to the moment when you first drop in the water in the first game. I even still remember playing when the game wasn’t finished yet. It was before the alien tablets and infrastructures..I had found an island and I was both so excited and terrified to know what kind of creatures would be there. I was so happy that I’ve moved my full base to rebuild it on the island, piece by piece! I couldn’t stop talking about the game to everyone .. I’d spent hours just building my base , collecting resources. In a weird way , it felt like home. I’m always gonna be grateful for those memories and I might even return in the future, now that they added more base customization! 😊
Outstanding work , I also do videos and your editing and narration are just incredible, great work man !!
Subnautica is the title that finally got me into PC gaming after gaming exclusively on consoles since the NES back in 1988. I built a gaming PC and this was my first steam purchase. The experience blew me away to such an extent that I have now clocked hundreds of hours experiencing Steam's indie gaming catalog. I never would have discovered Hades, Death's Door, and many others without this experience. I appreciate Subnautica for the masterpiece it is, which is why the humdrum sequel was disappointing in its blandness.
The claustrophobia is a real problem. Especially since the main vehicle is intended to get larger and more percise to maneuver. Also if anyones reading this. Below zero isnt bad. Its an enjoyable experience but not as good as the first by a mile
Yeah I had some footage of my seatruck getting wedged into the terrain and having to get out, disconnect it and manoeuvre them out individually. It was such a faff. I searched high and low across my whole play time but for the life of me couldn't find it. But yeah, the vehicle didn't fit the terrain. Not many things would.
God I missed your voice :)
My man 🙏
This is truly the best review of the two games, balancing the improvements against the shortcomings of BZ. You really found so many small details that created such a large impact overall... I didn't even notice the slow swim speed until you mentioned it in this review, but now I understand why exploration felt so much slower. I think the slowness of the sea truck compared to the sea moth further perpetuates this feeling.
In my opinion VG Matthew said it best. If you heard they were going to make a Subnautica sequel what would you have liked to see in it? What do you think would have made for an even better experience than the original. Going deeper? Larger world? More interaction with wildlife? Better base building? What you probably wouldn't answer is "smaller map, talking protagonist having conversations with an NPC, and more land sections". Yet that is what Unknown Worlds ended up making.
Certainly not excited for subnautica 3 after seeing people care more about coop then a good story or well crafted biomes, wtf….
Right?? You never know though, Unknown Worlds might surprise you 😊
It got woke, got broke. The first game took a long time to make and was very popular and successful. Greedy executives then wanted to pump another one out as cheaply and quickly as possible, and as is the usual tactic they hire writers to put woke ideology in there so when people point out the game is flawed, lazy and lacking they can deflect and say they are actually just bigots, it's triple AAA game production 101. This is why non triple A games are always superior.
Lmao it has absolutely nothing at all to do with "woke" you freak 😂😂😂
No reward to killing reaper leviathans my ass. It NEVER gets old when you take one of those suckers out.
However I will admit, on two seperate save files I eventually hunted them down and killed them all. And then i felt kind of sad that my old enemy was now extinct.
My main issue with below zero is that because unlike subnatica (where story beats are hidden lower and lower meaning you can only really find them in order as your suit and sub limit the depths you can travel to.) Below zero did not place its story bits like this. I cured the virus on accident, not know what I was doing or why was doing it. The player character speaking and hinting at things as if I already knew. Only for me to finally find the voice diarys that explained the plot and what I had been doing for the last hour, after I had already seen the big reveal. And this was done because the story progression really had nothing gating much of it, especially from an inventive player tackling problems possibly earlier than intended. In subnatutica 1, depth was not something easily avoided by players.
The main difference that made subnautica so good and is largely stripped down in below zero the the mystery of the unknown, this theme is is every single mechanic of subnautica from the areas, the crafting, the base building, the flora and fauna, the dangers to the overarching plot and every human being that died along the way. The mystery and the unknown are lost when you decided to make a sequel set in the same world with the same exact items ui and technology, mostly same creatures, same gameplay mechanics and the same overarching plot. They should really make a completely new completely different game as it's the only way to bring back that magic
Great overview on the music! I didn't realize how different they were from Subnautica and Below Zero.
Subnautica shouldn't have had a sequel. The first game worked so well because it was unique and had no restraints; the developer just made a game. With the sequel, the developer spent the whole time trying to make a game that could be sold to anyone because modern games must appeal to everyone to make as much money as possible. This resulted in the stitched together grey slop we got for the sequel.
I currently have 1900.2 hours, yes thats not a typo, nearly 2000 hours of play in Subnautica and I did not have any idea the character even had a name, I just referred to him as The Janitor, the only survivor made it out because he was mopping the escape pod area. Sam in contrast.. just please shut up and let me imprint my own feelings and fears onto the character.
Little nightmares reference
As the days go by below zero slowly starts getting less and less relavant since most of its QOL features are being ported to subnautica along with extra base building options, kinda lowering below zero's own achievements in the process.
Subnautica is an open world survival game. Below Zero is an adventure game. Totally different despite the shared core gameplay. As a veteran swimmer and marine biology enthusiast, I play both... But, for obvious reasons, I play the first one a lot more. :D
Ever since I tamed Subnautica and it became predictable, I've had this wish... to forget everything about it, just so I could play it anew once more.
The crazy thing with Below Zero is that the Early Access Version of the Game was significantly better than the Full Release.
Sure, the Full Release has more content, but the story setup in the Early Access Version, and the atmosphere was just better in every way.
How do you not have more subs this video was amazing!
Thanks! Working on that haha, massively appreciate the kind words, encouragement always really appreciated 😊
i saw in an interview with one of the developers that coop will be like a bonus, and single player will still be the main focus of the game