Even though you never see it in game, there is lore evidence of creatures leaving their spawn biomes for different reasons. The Reaper skeleton you find was dragged down there by the Sea Dragon (plus the one that trashed the Architect research facility) & the Ghost Leviathans migrating from their breeding grounds in the Lost river to the Crater's Edge, so even if they didn't actually build it into the game, there is evidence of more complexity to these ecosystems in-universe.
Yeah but I don't think she really read into the lore to know that. She mentioned the crash zone being scarce of food, which is true but it used to be a biome prior to getting destroyed and it's said in game the reapers flocked there due to the large noise of the crash
The existence of several enormous apex predators in a relatively small area was always something amusing about Subnautica's ecology 😅 Of course these are all for gameplay reasons, and Subnautica has been an incredible game for getting people interested in the ocean, or absolutely terrifying them to the point of never setting foot in water again
Apparently there is a brine river in Cenote Angelita, Mexico. If you look up pictures of it, the resemblance to the Lost River is striking. There are even branches that come up out of the brine like the Crab Claw Kelp in the Lost River, minus the bioluminescent tips.
I know of it! I actually thought it was classified as a pool, but I was reading some articles that do call it a river, since it seems to be quite gigantic. But it looks more like a static lake, rather than a flow of some sorts like in the lost river. It is indeed still very impressive!
@@Seamemaria I was amazed when I saw it. I think I read that people are actually able to swim through the brine in Cenote, at least in diving gear. I never even thought about places like that actually existing before Subnautica.
Yeah I agree mostly. But there were a few things I was both told and noticed. Over time in game, some of the minor preadetors move. For example. I have stalkers in the safe shallows in my game. In the mushroom forests, after a while I noticed Ampeels(the electric beast) showing up there. And, much to my surprise, a crab squid also was i my mushroom forest. Besides that the ghost Leviathan that lived in the blood kelp forest, moved to the underwater floating islands and attacks the bone sharks there. And lastly, I haven't confirmed myself, but if you kill the reapers around the Aurora, the sand sharks in that region because of their main preadetor being gone, were able to migrate and some may end up in the safe shallows and kelp forest. So..I think over time, the animals all eventually start looking for food elsewhere
It's a cool 'feature', but not intended. What really happens is that as you move around the map, creatures spawn and despawn depending on your render distance. Sometimes, the game wonks out, and creatures spawn where they shouldn't. Usually this is inside the terrain, which the ends up with them being catapulted to a section of the map they're not supposed to be in. Then the game 'records' them being there and subsequently respawns said creature in that location over and over, making it appear as if they 'moved'
Also one important thing I want to mention. I hope Maria can finds it The sea dragons actually used to go out through a hole in the Lava cave to the shallow and they often use this to hunt reapers . This is shown in the skeleton in the cave. Unfortunately the aurora blocks this hole when it crashed. The cave itself used to have much more biodiversity as well and the sea dragon is noted as going extinct.
in case u didnt know, the Sea Dragons travel from Lava zone to shallow waters and hunt other Leviathans like the Reaper. U must have found reapers bones in that zone as well. Also the Adult Ghost Lev travel the Void aka the Ecological Deadzone to grow.
Ima just comment here and hope Maria can see me I think the shallows that the player lands in is incredibly small and unable to support larger predators especially considering how shallow they are and a larger area of shallow are crushed by the aurora so speaking technically reapers also dwell in these areas. The lack of predators can also be contributed to the recent mass extinction on 4546b which is a weird system where small organisms like peepers are alive bc of their high reproduction rate and sea emperor enzymes while larger leviathan relies on sea emperor enzymes as well but are reduced significantly in numbers due to the decreased food so as this extinction event is pretty recent it’s more plausible that not all niches will be filled.
Hi Maria. Someone probably already told you that but it is to be noted (source : the ingame PDA) that all the ghost leviathans and reefback leviathans feed only from microorganisms (that's why there are so many ghosts in the abyss) . That doesn't explains everything but still... it's a beginning
I recently looked up a picture of the great barrier reef. That picture was made recently, a ton of pictures with bleached coral popped up... That's how bad we treat our planet. I was shocked when I saw it.
I do hope one day everything returns to it's normal state, and more threatened sea plants/sea creatures become more common in the ocean. Like the return of bigger manatee herds. And that humanity stops drilling for oil and gold in the ocean. I hope when I'm older that everything is still as beautiful as it is now and how it once was.
it was my understanding that most of the life on 4546b was killed off by the Kharaa Bacterium which might explain why the big predators were so aggressive [like, why attack a submarine?]
About the stalkers not moving outside the kelp forest maybe they know there are other predators like the sandshark,. and maybe the boneshark near the mushroom forest
A few things that I've seen in debates like this one: The crash zone may only be home to reapers because they got disoriented by the impact, given that they primarily use echolocation to navigate. Another theory is that they came to investigate the crash, so the smaller predators were probably the native species and it might've been an area like the grassy plateus and/or safe shallows. Alternately, even if the impact and radiation destroyed they area's ecosystem, you might expect there to be remains. The area may have been mostly just dunes, or maybe a transitional area between the shallows and the dunes on the other side. Question though, couldn't the jelyshrooms filter-feed on some sort of microorganisms in the cave? I feel like that was mentioned somewhere, but it may just have been speculation. I wouldn't be surprized if the crabsnakes feed on those jellyshrooms if they get sickly or close to the end of their lifespan too. There are also theories that the ghost leviathans migrate from the ghost kelp forest to the lost river to lay eggs, the eggs then hatch there and once the juveniles are old enough, they leave. It could be that this migration brings nutrients from the lost river into the ghost kelp forest which might explain a little about hw they can continue to exist like they do. This theory is based on the two juvenile ghosties you find in the lost river, and its proximity to the ghost kelp. We can also see evidence of a mass extinction even within some thousands of years, maybe a lot of the missing fauna was tied up in that and because of the continued strain of the Kara since then, nothing was able to fill the niche? It's interesting to speculate, anyway. I've definitely also seen stalkers in the shallows, just like someone else said.
Actually the game gives you a clue about the eco-system in the very beginning. After you land, if you climb out of your pod using the ladder to the roof, you see some *birds* flying away. And of course any sailor knows, where there's birds...... Totally brilliant detail that I missed on the first playthrough :D
I have no idea of this makes it more likely to work but I believe that the PDA indicates that every species classified as a leviathan is migratory and that the ghost leviathans migrate from the 'dead' zone using the brine river as a hatching ground (the ones found inside it being juveniles). Edit: I think there might also be similar notes in the PDA about the stalkers hunting in other biomes, less sure on that one.
Yes, that definitely helps. I also know that the PDA says that the Sea dragon leaves the lava lakes to hunt other leviathans. But the crab snakes for example are said to only venture 50 meters away from the jellyshrooms, which wouldn't give them much of an area to hunt. Just sprinkle some mussles, smaller predators and more Garryfish in there and it's all set xD
@@Seamemaria Yup the crab snacks always confused me. Why do they even need the jellyshrooms when they don't seem to have any predators down there? For the sea dragon I appreciate how you can scan one of its previous meals close to one of the entrances to simultaneously expand the ecology and set up tension like it's a horror movie.
@@bdk336 a little late, but i remember reading how the jellyshrooms would sustain the oculus (purple peeper variants), which fed the crab snakes. also the crab snakes are ambush predators, meaning they're hiding to hunt, not to escape a hunter
this game has very little to do with marine biology, but it is still one of the greatest games of all time (and it's set in an aquatic world on the ocean floor) - BIOSHOCK. it's a little scary, but has one of the greatest stories in videogames. I think you should play it next.
Unfortunately some features like roping off biomes to different animals and having hard barriers between them instead of gradually turning into separate biomes are for gameplay and narrative purposes. But animals do have minor migration between biomes both in the game and in lore. For instance it is often implied that Sea Dragons emerge from the Lava Biomes to hunt Reapers in shallow water. That is, of course, why you can find Reaper skeletons down there. Additionally Animals like Ghosties are said in their bios to be able to filter feed microorganisms and evolved to maximize activity and minimize energy use (though by what means remains unexplained). Also the ones found in the lost river are juveniles and the adults eventually leave for the void in the craters' edge where it is speculated there is a giant buffet of microscopic life to feed the leviathans that live out there. Plus there is a LOT of dead material in the world since the Kharaa began rampaging through the planet. The Kharaa is geologically speaking the planet's third mass extinction event. The first would be the underwater supervolcano eruption millions of years ago, the second the meteor strike, the third being the Kharaa and that happened only a few thousand-ish years ago (young in astronometric terms).
Awesome and interesting analysis! As for the “why did they get the predator ratio wrong?”, I think there are a few key reasons. As you noted, there have developers want the predators for gameplay reasons, and they need a fair number of them achieve the gameplay goals they have (if they are hard to find, it really wouldn’t be the same). So why not increase the amount of prey as you suggest? I think there are two reasons for that: first, it might make the world feel so cluttered and full that it would be distracting to players and again harm their intended gameplay. Second (and likely the bigger reason), more animals increased the demand on both CPU and GPU processing power, which leads to two more problems: first, it would mean that the minimal specification for a computer that can run the game would be higher (and so more expensive) which in turn means fewer people would be able to play the game (and thus less money for the developers). Second, it would lower the frame-rate, so less powerful machines (but ones still able to run it), would leave players with an experience that would be both less smooth and less responsive. Some games (Not sure if Subnautica is one of them or not) handle cases like that by decreasing “unneeded” elements only on less powerful machines. So for example, a less powerful PC might show too few prey animals to keep performance reasonable since the gameplay doesn’t require as many, while a more powerful PC might have more prey animals if it can afford the hit to performance without framerate getting too low. But a real eco-simulation wouldn’t do that, because changing the numbers on lower machines would break the ecosystem if it’s realistically simulated.
Obviously I understand you’re analyzing it as a real world, which I appreciate. Just thought I’d explain the computer and game reasons that are likely the explanation for those discrepancies from the real world.
The game already has an in game explanation and lore that gives facts as to how or why the ecosystem is the way it is. It's pretty good overall and i don't think it's really the whole devs did this for gameplay reasons and or some other common reason people usually use when it comes to games.
This was a great video, i love discussing the ecosystem in these games, specifically because of how some flora and fauna is clearly inspired by Earth organisms. Now as for your points in the video, there is in fact an explanation for most of the things you brought up! Concerning the Mushroom caves: We actually have an explanation of how it's ecosystem survives in-game, one of the Degasi voice logs by Bart Torgal talks about the circle of life down there. *"Lately I've been watching the crabsnakes. They ambush their prey as it tries to feed on the mushrooms they hide in. What they don't eat settles on the seabed, which fertilizes the mushrooms, which feeds the herbivores, and so the chain continues. Co-evolution gives me the fuzzies."* Concerning the Blood Kelp: This biome works in a similar way to the Mushroom caves, but its ecosystem is actually intertwined with another, the Bulb Kush zone. To explain, according to the PDA the Crabsquids you can discover in the Blood Kelp evolved to have their EMP attack due to the prey they hunt, the Ampeels in the Bulb Kush zone. What the Crabsquids or Ampeels don't eat falls to the sea floor, which feeds the Blood Crawlers, the long-legged deep sea cousins of the Cave Crawlers you can find on the Aurora and islands. The poop from the Blood Crawlers feeds the local flora, which feeds the smaller herbivores, which feed the Ampeels and so the cycle completes itself. Concerning the predator-to-prey ratio: This is less of a design flaw and more of a game limitation. As you've played the game you have likely noticed those 2D schools of fish you can't grab or interact with that often go through the terrain. These visual effects were added to simulate a larger ecosystem than what the game would allow for, unfortunately the devs couldn't implement as many creatures as these biomes would demand to self sustain themselves, otherwise the games performance would suffer, but lore-wise, there IS in fact enough of a herbivore presence to sustain an ecosystem. Concerning predators, large and small, not moving between biomes: Once again a game limitation, although i would personally also attribute this as a design flaw as well. We have several PDA entries that tell us that predators hunt prey that seems to stick to other biomes, but due to AI limitations, we don't actually see this happening. One good excuse the game does give us are the Sea Dragons, before the Aurora crashed, there used to be an opening on the crash site that went all the way down to the inactive Lava Zone, which allowed the Dragons to come up and hunt for Reaper Leviathans. Unfortunately, when the ship crashed it blocked this exit, which the game explains as the only source of food the Sea Dragons have. Meaning, the 2 that we encounter are likely the last of their species and will starve to death before long. Overall, the game does have some design flaws in it's realism that are brushed off as 'well its an alien ecosystem so it works', such as the leviathans constantly moving and not preserving energy. However for the most part, it makes an effort to make its ecosystems appear as realistic as possible, and i very much appreciate that in game development.
Actually most of the Leviathans are pretty self explained and easy to cover, Sea Dragons like you said have an in game explanation of their food source but they have been cut off and will likely die soon as the game itself says so that's pretty much as accurate and realistic as it gets for them, migration is explained in the game for multiple creatures and plants, even Leviathans such as the Ghost Leviathan which eats micro organisms which also basically explains how it's so constantly active, and it migrates for food and bigger territory, so honestly i don't see an issue here either, Sea Emperors are the same here too, but their species actually died out with the only 1 remaining forcing itself to live past it's lifespan and to at least have it's offspring live to continue it's species. Reefbacks again also eat mirco organisms and are slow moving but also migrate. Again pretty much done here too, the only Leviathan left is the Reaper which literally eats anything it can sink it's teeth in and that's honestly not that hard to explain or prove. So really the video seems to really push the idea that all these Leviathan would never likely survive or exist even tho the fact is they have all the means to survive accept for a few which the game even points out and pretty much confirms they won't survive for long. I would call this all busted tbh, because you gave a pretty clear explanation too about certain things that are proven that the ecosystem follows a cycle which even i knew about but found odd was never mentioned in the video, the game isn't made half baked, it has all the information you could possibly need to at least give an idea of how it works, it's not perfect but what is honestly ? This planet is dying, it has a bacterium that isn't native to the planet and is killing everything off, the ecosystem is adapting to work as best as it can or just die off over time, it's a unique and honestly not comparable to earth as earth is developed and healthy and isn't a carbon copy or even close.
There are actually three sea dragon leviathans, and I have no doubt they could still fit through the mountains corridor to hunt the reapers in the mountains biome. There's a reaper skeleton in the mountains corridor to support this. :)
@@Monody512 Interesting, still based on their lore those 3 won't survive long, maybe 1 for sure as there will be less competition for food, but it will struggle it's entire life until it can find a better solution, or have it's species die out completely.
Outstanding video, Maria. One of your best in that it integrates your gameplay with your passion and career. Add to that the way you integrated a sponsor that was very appropriate for the content of this video, and it is a blueprint for how videos should be made. Excellent job. As far as the lack of predatory fish, I think that the events that occurred in game, both the radiation and impact of the ship, and the invasion of the alien species, including the teleporting one, could have upset of devastated some of the smaller predators. Leaving the biggest ones to be forced to hunt the next best thing, the human swimming around. Great video, love your work. Finally, after your video ended, the next video played, and it was about Alex Ries, the biologist artist who created some original concepts of additional creatures in Subnautica. Very in depth examination of the species in the game. Search his name and "The Lost Aliens of Subnautica". The one I think should have been included was the Kitewing. Found here: th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxaDwLXtJv8oJBvXoVjH9cuTW6KTuMSrII
I think there’s a log about crab snakes actually going out occasionally to hunt since one life pod says that they goes out and tries to bite through the hull.
slight note about the leviathans: the ship had apparently landed atop a hole that lead into the active lava zone, which is why the reaper leviathans constantly swim around it, cause it *used* to be an open biome of its own. this is also how the sea dragon ate them via going up the same hole to what's now called the crash zone
Just wanna say I love this, and would love for more videos about this. Maybe about some other biomes in the game, or even Below Zero? The science behind things always fascinated me, fictional and unrealistic or not
Something that I just wanted to mention is that all of the leviathans that are on the surface actually mostly live in the void because the void only consists of microorganisms and leviathans meaning that there is a lot of food and competition in the void because the filter feeder leviathans consume the microorganisms to sustain themselves and then the predatory leviathans consume the filter feeders to sustain themselves.
I'm curious, what is your overall opinion on the idea of the ecosystem having evolved on a giant volcano crater, and the rest of the planet being this vast "ecological dead zone" with only micro-organisms and enormous ghost leviathans? The PDA data suggests they feed on the microscopic organisms kinda like baleen filter animals but at the same time their jaws suggest this wouldn't really suffice.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to say. The ecological dead zone seems to be somewhat inspired by the open ocean, where food is scarce and not many macro-organisms can be found. One of the things that strikes me as unlikely is how extremely fast and active all these predators are all the time. If you look at big predators on Earth, ther have long periods in which they are in somewhat of a lethargic stage. It would probably be energy-inefficient to be so active all the time, when you need to eat so much. That would probably be my main doubt regarding the existence of ghost leviathans. But this is very far from my expertise haha
My explanation for this has always been the existence of Kharaa in the ecosystem. We can't treat this as an ecosystem that's sustainable, because it's NOT. This is a dying planet, whose lifeforms have been forced to develop the most extreme adaptations imaginable. There are so many predators because canonically creatures infected with Kharaa become more aggressive than normal (though this isn't actually seen in gameplay), so you need to be able to defend yourself. Not to mention animals like the Crabsquid, who've developed freakin EMPs, maybe to defend against the sudden arrival of Warpers. Now, the Kharaa was only introduced around 1,300 years ago, which isn't nearly enough time for such drastic changes to happen under normal conditions. But again, these are *not* normal circumstances. Kharaa's main trait is that it speeds up random mutations(sort of like a super cancer for your whole body), which is eventually how it kills you. Not many things can survive suddenly growing more heart tubes or whatever (ouch). Now this would DRASTICALLY reduce the amount of time creatures have to live, but there's still a non-zero chance that they would find a mate and pass on their crazily mutated genes. After many many generations of this, eventually the only survivors WOULD be the ones that somehow managed to adapt to some of the random mutations that turned out to be useful(Like the Peeper's non-digesting stomach that they use to carry food for the Sea Emperor, a trait we KNOW only developed after the Kharaa's introduction). Now again, this is not sustainable, which is why the vast majority of 4546B is a lifeless wasteland, we just happened to be super lucky to land close enough to the Sea Emperor that we get to see the final gasps of life on the planet.
The jellyshroom caves actually have one of the most well thought out ecosystems in the game. Its described in a degasi pda voicelog. The crabsnakes prey on oculi: the big peepers with purple eyes that (unnoticeably due to subnautica’s size perspective issue) are actually about the size of a human torso. The oculi prey on the jellyshrooms. Crabsnakes have a symbiotic relationship with these jellyshrooms, one of the conditions of which is that they defend it from predators and simultaneously get their energy needs in by ambushing predators of the jellyshrooms. What the crabsnake doesnt eat then is absorbed into the soil and serves as mineral food for the jellyshroom. The lava zone, however, has no realism. For obvious reasons (lava lakes in water)
The music sounds a LOT like something you'd hear in Subnautica, nice choice Edit: I should probably also add that the video was really entertaining and interesting!
Logical conclusion: there's something that poops in those caves and hunts in the shallows and the mushroom forests where food is abundant, it hunts Stalkers if they leave the kelp, but doesn't go into the kelp to get them, and you never saw it because it knew exactly where you were the whole time and stayed out of sight, the same way as it's been avoiding leviathans the whole time, or maybe you never saw it because it's extremely well camouflaged and you swam right over it without ever noticing.
@@Seamemaria Well, I started off thinking it was some sort of shark with really highly-evolved electrosensitivity, tracking neural activity, and the kelp somehow scrambled the signal, but my OC ("Original Character") for a _Doctor Who_ TTRPG (table-top role-playing game) is a candidate for the camouflage explanation. Helical body, octopus arms at both ends, all pink and white like the coral in your "Subnautica in real life" video, covered in structures like fan corals, themselves covered in cilia like comb jellies (Yes, this species does have the trait "attractive" and yes, that matters in the game), with enough ability to detect water currents and vibrations and chemical signatures to not need eyes, so the darkness in the caves wouldn't be a problem. I'd think your fancy scanners would have picked up some sort of signature from it, but maybe not if it stayed very still. Algiogenic and muscle-relaxant venoms in cnidocytes all over those frills make trying to grab one a very bad idea. I say "it" because, hey, alien, so they can be cyclic hermaphrodites if I say they are. 10 days male, 3-5 days neuter, 10 days female, 3-5 days neuter, and they mate based entirely on personality and get counter-synchronised so that each couple is fertile both ways. Take _that,_ gender binary fundamentalists! I called them Phtharraphaeraea, and had to look that spelling up just now. Meh. Just say "feather fairy." That's easy to remember.
@@Seamemaria Alternative predator: _extremely_ large seabird, but then it'd have to be nesting on the top of a sponge-like rocky island for the nutrients to be getting into the caves, wouldn't it?
When I started watching your videos (around your 4th Subnautica video), I knew that this video was something I wanted, and I'm so happy you finally did it! Much love, and I can't wait to see what else you put out!
From the PDA: While fully capable of tearing through the flesh of any creature in range, all evidence indicates that mature ghost leviathans feed on microscopic lifeforms in the waters around the edges of the inhabited zone. Maybe the smaller ones can sustain themselves at least in part on the microorganisms of the lost river and other areas where they live, thus reducing the amount of large organisms they would need to consume. Also the whole of the first Subnautica happens on top of a dead volcano so there would be a lot of food for microorganisms coming from the inside of 4546b out to the surface in that area which might be the fuel for the local ecosystems.
Loved this video! Late that I am. Regardless, I’d like to pitch in with some tid bits! Fun thing about the Leviathans, a lot of them actually have some reasoning or even fallout to show the effects of what you described. Ghost Leviathans for instance, while still capable of eating the prey we typically see, are also incredible filter feeders, which is how the adults survive our in the ecological dead zone. They feed on the millions of plankton undoubtedly out there and just, keep growing. Sea Dragons are the opposite, requiring decently sized prey to feed their carnivorous bodies, even dragging Reapers down to the Lava Zone for heftier meals, but the thing about the Dragons is, they’re dying out. PDA scans and general appearances of the species support the idea that the Sea Dragons are barely clinging to survival with numbers in the single digits, which would make sense thanks to a detail I’ll discuss in a minute. Reapers themselves have their pick of the potluck for potential food sources, whether that be smaller prey fish or bone and sand sharks, both of which are dominant near Reaper territory and are decently sized meals with little effective defense from the Reaper’s attacks and sonar hunting. And the Sea Emperor itself is also explained to feed on microorganisms and requires an extensive working ecosystem to flourish, hence the only one alive we see in game is hinted to be mentally influencing Peepers to swim through its enclosure’s vents to the surface and back, not only to spread the Emperor’s old and failing enzyme 42 to prolong the planet’s existence, but for Peepers to eat plant life and seeds, come back, and vomit them up, permitting the oddly wide range of plant life in the Emperor’s habitat, and thus her own survival. Another thing I wanted to point out is that ecological death thing with the Sea Dragons. It would make far more sense if the Sea Dragons were more used to a substantially different 4546B, and are only now starting to take a big hit as the planet’s ecosystem rapidly changes. And rapidly changing it has been all thanks to the release of the bacteria. PDA data supports the thesis that the virus has ravaged 4546B, and caused a dramatic shift in the planet’s ecosystems and creatures ability to thrive. The Dunes and the areas surrounding the crash zone are an indicator of this, once places filled with more potential life than we see due to the bacteria’s effects and rampant killing off of many species before our arrival. The species we currently see only kept afloat thanks to the Sea Emperor’s efforts, and even then, the bacteria still manages to find its way into the sea’s animals. With the Jellyshroom caves, I just wanted to add that the variant of the Peeper you find down there is said to have adapted to living in cave environments, so it’s likely the Oculus species are simply natives, and their existence draws in the Biters from the Creepvine Forests and other surrounding areas, seeking an easy meal. The crab snakes could then hypothetically end up feasting on both, and conserving energy by resting inside their jelly shrooms as opposed to constantly being on a patrol like we see in game for gameplay purposes, and as the PDA tells us, the crumbs and bits they leave behind from meals helps to fertilize the ground of their home shrooms, supporting the symbiotic relationship. To my knowledge the crabsnakes also lack eyes, which may benefit their low diet lifestyles. Anyways! If anyone put up with reading all this, thank you! This was a wonderful video Maria, I just love the exploration of biology both in real life and in this game, so I figured I’d pitch in!
Another awesome video! The format you follow in presenting information in your videos is great! Nice transitions between scenes and topics. Really enjoyed this one.
in the coral reef part of subnautica there's also the fish that if you find them in the tunnels they do a suicide run at you, that's one of the aquatic lifeforms I'm not too fond of, there's one reaper class leviathan I've affectionately called bullseye because he/she always seems to find me it's kind of comforting and I also love the three legged underwater landstrider leviathans they have an interesting way of telling to mind your own bussiness plus they're really cute as well
Great video ! Did you play In Other Waters ? When I played it I thought a lot about you because it revolves a lot about biomes/ecosystems on an alien planet. You should give it a try, it's really good
After watching this video I have come up with a little theory regarding the crabsnake's food source and sustainability. In one of the radio logs a survivor states that there was some kind of snake thing trying eat through his lifepod. But his life pod is not in the jellyshroom caves but the grassy plateaus, right outside of one of the cave entrances. There are no snake looking things in the grassy plateaus so I assume that while we don't see it in-game, crabsnakes do exit their home biome for more food, and if that is the case, it is likely that other predators do the same, we just don't get to see it since it might make the game a little too difficult or something like that.
in defense of the leviathans, the game actually does give a good explanation to how they are able to survive. the ghost leviathans are alot like whale sharks, they feed off microbes, the sea dragon leviathan is implied to hunt the reaper leviathan, in an old version of the game a massive hole was below the Aurora that led straight to the lava zone, and you can see some reaper carcasses down there. the reaper is harder to defend, BUT it is assumed that Aurora crash site used to be a rich ecosystem, so we can deduce that there was likely some sort of prey for the reaper to hunt, now extinct due to radiation.
possible partial explanations for the sustainability of 4546B deep sea and cave biomes: 1. jellyshroom caves: the jellyshroom caves are home to large amounts of oculus fish, cousins of the peeper. the prescence of these fish, along with jellyshrooms, could explain the sustainability of the crabsnake species. the jellyshroom is possibly edible: from the jellyshroom databank entry: "(...)Membrane structure suggests vulnerability to predation, but evidence thereof is lacking(...)" 2. blood kelp: again, here the local flora comes in clutch. from the bloodvine databank enty: "(...) The vibrant red oils which seep from the bloodvine coagulate into semi-hard pustules, which frequently fall loose and form a vital foodstuff for the local ecosystem, (...)" the blood oil seems to be the main source of nutrition to the local species, which then work its way up the food chain 3.lavazone: beside the plentiful sources of lava and the nutritional value thereof, during exploration you may find the skeleton of a reaper leviathan. the reaper leviathan has been brought down there by the sea dragon. the remains of the reaper and their brethren may be a major source of nutrition to the local fauna. in addition to all of the above stated biomes and their possible sustainability, peepers can be found all throughout the planet. these peepers have accesses to the primary containment facility, which seems to work on a different ecological framework. lastly, it is important to note that the ghost leviathan is not a predator, but rather survive on a microbe based diet (somewhat similar to earths whales) from the ghost leviathan databank entry: "(...) all evidence indicates that mature ghost leviathans feed on microscopic lifeforms in the waters around the edges of the inhabited zone (...)"
This is an interesting video I think the jellyshroom caves work only because mushrooms eat organic food and doesnt use sunlight soley. I think the jellyshrooms survive off of dieing crabsnakes and crabsnakes survive off of going to the surface(they do this sometimes, i named one Jerry and i loved it) and hunting in the grassy platues. Surface animals coming down into the jellyshroom biome helps it sustain itself further. Thats just my thoughts on this biome, i dont have any idea on how any of the other cave ones could possibly work
maria if you enjoyed the game you should to a secound gameplay. why not ? this time maybe establish some of your own chalanges .like for example scanning everything. or finding new secrets. the map is pretty huge there are some things you dint see yet. also you could build your base in another place or even play without a base, by living in the cyclops . i would definatly watch another of your series
About the safe shallows not having predators thats just not true. Most people often overlook this detail, but the crashfish (which is pretty common in the safe shallows) is listed as a predator in the pda, not a scavenger not a herbivore, a predator. The crash fish could come out and hunt smaller fish in the shallows and only explode when it sees bigger animals. There is also the fact that stalkers rarely come out and hunt in the safe shallows. Both these predators could be enough to keep the herbivore population in check
As much as I like realism, there is always going to be a need for game mechanics, since it is... well... a game... I applaud developers that do try to get things as realistic as possible and I think the developers of Subnautica did an awesome job. For a planet as 4546B to work as it is presented, it seems that either some kind of extreme low calorie requirement is needed, or the organisms could tap into other sources. Because I cannot imagine being able to build up big mass without needing much carbon intake, perhaps the water could be saturated with carbon (hard water) and the organisms have found a way to take in non-organic carbon. This would take away from need to consume large amounts of prey. But hunting would still provide aditional calorie, which could give any organisms an edge.
I think as some pointed out, the crash harmed the biosphere here. Also many many MANY years of Karaaa exposure has begun to damage the ecosystem. Note the Sparse reef and its baron landscape. Your PDA says it cannot explain why the lack of life there. But it is likely we are seeing a dying eco system that even if the Karass is cured will take decades to begin to heal and re balance itself.
I can't agree with conclusion that preditors don't go for food to another bioms. For example sea dragons were hunting on reapers (you can find a lot of their skeletons in lava zone) before Aurora crashed. According the lore junior ghost leviathans travels to surface from lost river while growing and they can go out of the cave but don't do it while someone is looking (maybe player confuses them). Or I just wish 4546b was real and that's the reason I wrote it
Some predators don't seem to go for food to other biomes, not all, but some, like the crab snakes or the lava lizards. But even then, with the amount of very active huge predators in all these biomes (except for the shallows perhaps), one would expect many more prey items. Just splash some more Garryfish in there and we are golden=P I just love the name Garryfish
@@Seamemaria Most of the large predators such as Leviathans eat micro organisms, Sea Emperor, Reefbacks, Sea Treaders, Ghost Leviathans, literally all eat Mirco-organisms or minerals that are in the water or sea floor in the case of the Sea Treaders. The only Leviathans that actively hunt for prey are the Sea Dragons and Reapers, the Sea Dragons are already explained to hunt Reapers but have been cut off from their food source and are a dying species with only a couple left, so the game actually in fact literally gives evidence and explanation that realistically represents exactly what you said would be the case. Also the fact that Sea Dragons are dying out means more food source for the rest of the creatures in that area of the biome, also Reapers tend to hunt anything they can catch so really it's not hard for them to find food, and they migrate, literally all the leviathans in the game do or have a lore related explanation as them actually migrating. Sea Emperors and Ghost Leviathans both migrate from biomes to the Ecological Dead Zone once almost fully grown to have a bigger territory and to eat more Micro-Organisms as their main food source, Reefbacks also migrate around with their pod as said in the game itself, they are slow moving and don't require a lot of energy, even other lifeforms feed of their backs filled with coral which would also give them in turn some sustainability considering how many micro-organisms these would produce and other such waste products from other lifeforms going on their backs, Sea Dragons used to migrate all the way to the surface to hunt Reapers, Reapers used to live in the dunes but ever since the Aurora crash they migrated towards to load noise of it and have expanded their territory and available food sources. Other big predators such as the Crabsquids you can discover in the Blood Kelp evolved to have their EMP attack due to the prey they hunt, the Ampeels in the Bulb Kush zone. What the Crabsquids or Ampeels don't eat falls to the sea floor, which feeds the Blood Crawlers, the long-legged deep sea cousins of the Cave Crawlers you can find on the Aurora and islands. The poop from the Blood Crawlers feeds the local flora, which feeds the smaller herbivores, which feed the Ampeels and so the cycle completes itself. Same with Crabsnakes and the Jellyshroom caves. The devs actually put a lot of thought and explanation, the information in the game is all there, it's not perfect or complete but nothing really is, the planet isn't a perfect condition and is frankly dying, it's not a situation you can compare because Earth is 99% water based planet, it doesn't have a bacterium that is killing off the entire ecosystem/not native to the planet itself, it doesn't have the same overall ecosystem or trend in terms of how the creatures reproduce or how their biology functions in general. The game to me is as close to realistic as any game has ever come with such a big difference in nature but yet so close at the same time.
now for an unrelated comment: for your criticism that there are way too many giant predators for the rest of the foodchain, I think it's a game limitation, the developpers want the players to see all these giants animals, which could exist given sufficient food, but now ask yourself: how much bigger would the map of subnautica need to be to support the same number of giant predators you see in it? 10 times bigger? 100 times bigger? Now imagine how long it would take you to go fetch Kyanite if the map was 100 times bigger. You get the point, I don't think subnautica is supposed to show the ecosystem as it would really be, rather a shrinked down version with all the most intresting parts right next to each other so that you don't spend literal hours or days swimming to the next biome.
There are a lot of games and movies that could be immensely improved, if the programmers/directors consulted an actual scientist. Most of the time they seem to go for the rule of cool, but movies like The Martian show that the general public may actually like realistic fiction.
That's true. But If I would have to guess, I would say that the developers of Subnautica actually put quite a lot of effort into researching ecology and biology. They provide really interesting and realistic explanations for a lot of the behaviours and physiology of some of these organisms. But of course, the game wouldn't be the same without some of the overly-aggressive predators ;)
Love your video! Its quite an interesting topic that was in my mind for a long time. However I really think you did miss a point or two with this one. Firstly, due to its being a game its likely that small predeators were not designed to migrate to other zones. If stalkers were to migrate ingame to shallows, a new player would have a terrible experience. But there are some hints that predeators do leave their biom to find food (Biggest example being, Sea dragon). Its simply not within the game itself. Secondly, the three largest predeators are all nomadic. Sea Dragon takes long trips to the surface to lure Reaper Leviathians into the depths before they can trap them, its within their PDA. Its also worth mentioning that Sea Dragons are nearly extinct, just like the massive predeators that lived before us. So perhaps it is a creature that is just a relic of the pass? As for Ghost Leviathian, they are only predeatorial during their juvenile. Once they are big enough, they venture into the dead zone where they live a life of only eating micro organisms. Their attacks are solely territorial, as its written in the PDA. As for Reaper Leviathians, its simply stated in the PDA, the biom where they essentially live is called "Dunes" which PDA adresses as their main migration track. They also live near the mountain, which is a rather big and vast ecosystem filled with food for them to munch on! As for final, I really wish you'd talk about the ecological dead zone. A ecosystem that consists only Ghost Leviathians and micro organisms since leviathians simply kill anything that comes near. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, is that something possible?
I chalked most of the long term survival of the ecosystem being an indirect result of the aliens interferance. Since they have vents going throughout the area that the peepers seem to love getting sucked into. I just assumed that peepers get fed to various biomes coincidentally and this allows the biomes to last despite the lack of natural prey. I also assumed that the shallows was a sort of breeding grounds and the prey fish would spread outwards over time, I also assumed that preditor fish would still either swim upwards periodically to hunt during scarcity or turn to hunting other preditors or even canablisim. But honestly most of my assumptions were based on the idea that the various fishes weren't locked into each biome and other minor issues (game mechanics basically). Edit: Even now as I edit this I had a thought. The planet was locked down for ages, long enough that 3 ships got shot down and for an ancient civilisation of space aliens to vanish. How would our PDA that doesn't have access to the main system know what anything on the planet is? I'm starting to consider the thought that the PDA is not giving us acurate data but is instead feeding us guesses based on existing information and scans of the wildlife. So this information comes off as guess work and assumption rather then any practical research.
Hey I love your Subnautica 1 & 2 playthroughs. There is this new underwater survival game, its called Death in the water 2. Maybe you'd like to check it out and do a play through. :)
The difference in biomes could lie in the nature of the soil there. Plants can't grow on unforgiving soils after all. You have forgotten one key parameter, there... the presence of Architects installations. Those pump the excess heat from the volcano to maintain the facilities in function; thus stabilizing the volcano and making it safe for the biodiversity. The other parameter is the Khara bacteria itself which kills a number of animals whereas the enzyne carried from the tank where the big Leviathan is prisoner helps others to stay alive. Plus we don't really know the real life cycle of those animals, if we are lucky, they are alive in Summer and we are in Summer and they hibernate or their metabolism is quite slowed down in Winter?
The thing is Planet 4546b is not earth so things very well could act and or be different then on earth also on 4546b sea dragons did go to the surface to eat reapers so they did eat reapers until the tunnel they used to get to the reapers was blocks and all the others tunnels are not big enough for them also maybe the Sea dragons learned to eat magma/Lava like I don't know how but sense this IS a alien and this is not earth I guess it is possible maybe
Shallows don't have predators because of gamedesign. Usually in games start location must be safe, so player can learn basic controls and understand gameplay. The far player progresses, the more complex and hard and dangerous game will be, modern game design dictates it. But in the past, in 80-s, it wasn't like that. On the start of the game's industry a lot of games had constant game level of hardness. So in those old games enemies at start and in the end were dangerous. But it is not comfortable for player to die just in the start of the game, he can be disappointed and drop the game. today that old approach is forgotten.
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and stalker sometimes go in safe shalows
what about giant squids, japanese spider crabs and other deep-sea gigantism cases? How come these animals can sustain their big bodies down there?
@@DeathForSk8 eat another big leaviath or ur own species
Even though you never see it in game, there is lore evidence of creatures leaving their spawn biomes for different reasons. The Reaper skeleton you find was dragged down there by the Sea Dragon (plus the one that trashed the Architect research facility) & the Ghost Leviathans migrating from their breeding grounds in the Lost river to the Crater's Edge, so even if they didn't actually build it into the game, there is evidence of more complexity to these ecosystems in-universe.
Yeah but I don't think she really read into the lore to know that. She mentioned the crash zone being scarce of food, which is true but it used to be a biome prior to getting destroyed and it's said in game the reapers flocked there due to the large noise of the crash
7:11 that's one of the reasons I love your channel XD
hehe
Subnautica is one of the main reasons I'm wanting to study marine biology.... Very interesting video by the way
Oh hi
The existence of several enormous apex predators in a relatively small area was always something amusing about Subnautica's ecology 😅
Of course these are all for gameplay reasons, and Subnautica has been an incredible game for getting people interested in the ocean, or absolutely terrifying them to the point of never setting foot in water again
Agree. In the end, I think we can all agree that Subnautica is pretty awesome :D
I love this so much. I hope we get more games with detailed eco-systems in them.
I'm very happy you enjoyed this! :D
Apparently there is a brine river in Cenote Angelita, Mexico. If you look up pictures of it, the resemblance to the Lost River is striking. There are even branches that come up out of the brine like the Crab Claw Kelp in the Lost River, minus the bioluminescent tips.
I know of it! I actually thought it was classified as a pool, but I was reading some articles that do call it a river, since it seems to be quite gigantic. But it looks more like a static lake, rather than a flow of some sorts like in the lost river. It is indeed still very impressive!
@@Seamemaria I was amazed when I saw it. I think I read that people are actually able to swim through the brine in Cenote, at least in diving gear. I never even thought about places like that actually existing before Subnautica.
Yeah I agree mostly. But there were a few things I was both told and noticed. Over time in game, some of the minor preadetors move. For example. I have stalkers in the safe shallows in my game. In the mushroom forests, after a while I noticed Ampeels(the electric beast) showing up there. And, much to my surprise, a crab squid also was i my mushroom forest. Besides that the ghost Leviathan that lived in the blood kelp forest, moved to the underwater floating islands and attacks the bone sharks there. And lastly, I haven't confirmed myself, but if you kill the reapers around the Aurora, the sand sharks in that region because of their main preadetor being gone, were able to migrate and some may end up in the safe shallows and kelp forest. So..I think over time, the animals all eventually start looking for food elsewhere
Oh interesting... that would change things. I haven't noticed that in my gameplay yet. Maybe I need to spend more time down in the biomes of 4546B. :D
That sounds pretty cool DellAnime
It's a cool 'feature', but not intended. What really happens is that as you move around the map, creatures spawn and despawn depending on your render distance. Sometimes, the game wonks out, and creatures spawn where they shouldn't. Usually this is inside the terrain, which the ends up with them being catapulted to a section of the map they're not supposed to be in. Then the game 'records' them being there and subsequently respawns said creature in that location over and over, making it appear as if they 'moved'
@@lewd2851 well I guess it makes things more realistic in the end lol
@@Seamemaria if you want to see if their behaviors change over time, maybe use console commands to speed time up or kill predators
Also one important thing I want to mention. I hope Maria can finds it
The sea dragons actually used to go out through a hole in the Lava cave to the shallow and they often use this to hunt reapers . This is shown in the skeleton in the cave. Unfortunately the aurora blocks this hole when it crashed. The cave itself used to have much more biodiversity as well and the sea dragon is noted as going extinct.
in case u didnt know, the Sea Dragons travel from Lava zone to shallow waters and hunt other Leviathans like the Reaper. U must have found reapers bones in that zone as well. Also the Adult Ghost Lev travel the Void aka the Ecological Deadzone to grow.
Ima just comment here and hope Maria can see me
I think the shallows that the player lands in is incredibly small and unable to support larger predators especially considering how shallow they are and a larger area of shallow are crushed by the aurora so speaking technically reapers also dwell in these areas. The lack of predators can also be contributed to the recent mass extinction on 4546b which is a weird system where small organisms like peepers are alive bc of their high reproduction rate and sea emperor enzymes while larger leviathan relies on sea emperor enzymes as well but are reduced significantly in numbers due to the decreased food so as this extinction event is pretty recent it’s more plausible that not all niches will be filled.
Nice analysis
I loved all the eco systems in subnautica how much the devolopers dedicated to make them is so great
Hi Maria. Someone probably already told you that but it is to be noted (source : the ingame PDA) that all the ghost leviathans and reefback leviathans feed only from microorganisms (that's why there are so many ghosts in the abyss) . That doesn't explains everything but still... it's a beginning
Overanalyzing rudimentary games is one of my favorite video topics lmao
I recently looked up a picture of the great barrier reef. That picture was made recently, a ton of pictures with bleached coral popped up... That's how bad we treat our planet. I was shocked when I saw it.
Unfortunately coral bleaching in the great barrier reefs is pretty bad this year :(
I do hope one day everything returns to it's normal state, and more threatened sea plants/sea creatures become more common in the ocean. Like the return of bigger manatee herds. And that humanity stops drilling for oil and gold in the ocean. I hope when I'm older that everything is still as beautiful as it is now and how it once was.
Another great video.... we need the people that made SubN to employ people like you to help develop their worlds
That would be awesome. I'm a sucker for ecological realistic pieces of entertainment! :D
it was my understanding that most of the life on 4546b was killed off by the Kharaa Bacterium which might explain why the big predators were so aggressive [like, why attack a submarine?]
Sea dragons used to take reapers from the surface to eat but because of the crash their passage to the surface is blocked
if it existed im moving to the safe shallows
About the stalkers not moving outside the kelp forest maybe they know there are other predators like the sandshark,. and maybe the boneshark near the mushroom forest
A few things that I've seen in debates like this one:
The crash zone may only be home to reapers because they got disoriented by the impact, given that they primarily use echolocation to navigate. Another theory is that they came to investigate the crash, so the smaller predators were probably the native species and it might've been an area like the grassy plateus and/or safe shallows. Alternately, even if the impact and radiation destroyed they area's ecosystem, you might expect there to be remains. The area may have been mostly just dunes, or maybe a transitional area between the shallows and the dunes on the other side.
Question though, couldn't the jelyshrooms filter-feed on some sort of microorganisms in the cave? I feel like that was mentioned somewhere, but it may just have been speculation. I wouldn't be surprized if the crabsnakes feed on those jellyshrooms if they get sickly or close to the end of their lifespan too.
There are also theories that the ghost leviathans migrate from the ghost kelp forest to the lost river to lay eggs, the eggs then hatch there and once the juveniles are old enough, they leave. It could be that this migration brings nutrients from the lost river into the ghost kelp forest which might explain a little about hw they can continue to exist like they do. This theory is based on the two juvenile ghosties you find in the lost river, and its proximity to the ghost kelp.
We can also see evidence of a mass extinction even within some thousands of years, maybe a lot of the missing fauna was tied up in that and because of the continued strain of the Kara since then, nothing was able to fill the niche? It's interesting to speculate, anyway.
I've definitely also seen stalkers in the shallows, just like someone else said.
Actually the game gives you a clue about the eco-system in the very beginning. After you land, if you climb out of your pod using the ladder to the roof, you see some *birds* flying away. And of course any sailor knows, where there's birds...... Totally brilliant detail that I missed on the first playthrough :D
You find that birds on Qurantine Enforce Iland.
I have no idea of this makes it more likely to work but I believe that the PDA indicates that every species classified as a leviathan is migratory and that the ghost leviathans migrate from the 'dead' zone using the brine river as a hatching ground (the ones found inside it being juveniles).
Edit: I think there might also be similar notes in the PDA about the stalkers hunting in other biomes, less sure on that one.
Yes, that definitely helps. I also know that the PDA says that the Sea dragon leaves the lava lakes to hunt other leviathans. But the crab snakes for example are said to only venture 50 meters away from the jellyshrooms, which wouldn't give them much of an area to hunt. Just sprinkle some mussles, smaller predators and more Garryfish in there and it's all set xD
@@Seamemaria Yup the crab snacks always confused me. Why do they even need the jellyshrooms when they don't seem to have any predators down there? For the sea dragon I appreciate how you can scan one of its previous meals close to one of the entrances to simultaneously expand the ecology and set up tension like it's a horror movie.
@@bdk336 a little late, but i remember reading how the jellyshrooms would sustain the oculus (purple peeper variants), which fed the crab snakes. also the crab snakes are ambush predators, meaning they're hiding to hunt, not to escape a hunter
this game has very little to do with marine biology, but it is still one of the greatest games of all time (and it's set in an aquatic world on the ocean floor) - BIOSHOCK. it's a little scary, but has one of the greatest stories in videogames. I think you should play it next.
I've seen the Stalker eat fish, and if you hold a peeper out a Stalker will come and eat it, and he'll leave you alone, for a while. Oh and, REAPER! 😁
Unfortunately some features like roping off biomes to different animals and having hard barriers between them instead of gradually turning into separate biomes are for gameplay and narrative purposes. But animals do have minor migration between biomes both in the game and in lore. For instance it is often implied that Sea Dragons emerge from the Lava Biomes to hunt Reapers in shallow water. That is, of course, why you can find Reaper skeletons down there. Additionally Animals like Ghosties are said in their bios to be able to filter feed microorganisms and evolved to maximize activity and minimize energy use (though by what means remains unexplained). Also the ones found in the lost river are juveniles and the adults eventually leave for the void in the craters' edge where it is speculated there is a giant buffet of microscopic life to feed the leviathans that live out there.
Plus there is a LOT of dead material in the world since the Kharaa began rampaging through the planet. The Kharaa is geologically speaking the planet's third mass extinction event. The first would be the underwater supervolcano eruption millions of years ago, the second the meteor strike, the third being the Kharaa and that happened only a few thousand-ish years ago (young in astronometric terms).
Awesome and interesting analysis!
As for the “why did they get the predator ratio wrong?”, I think there are a few key reasons. As you noted, there have developers want the predators for gameplay reasons, and they need a fair number of them achieve the gameplay goals they have (if they are hard to find, it really wouldn’t be the same).
So why not increase the amount of prey as you suggest? I think there are two reasons for that: first, it might make the world feel so cluttered and full that it would be distracting to players and again harm their intended gameplay.
Second (and likely the bigger reason), more animals increased the demand on both CPU and GPU processing power, which leads to two more problems: first, it would mean that the minimal specification for a computer that can run the game would be higher (and so more expensive) which in turn means fewer people would be able to play the game (and thus less money for the developers).
Second, it would lower the frame-rate, so less powerful machines (but ones still able to run it), would leave players with an experience that would be both less smooth and less responsive.
Some games (Not sure if Subnautica is one of them or not) handle cases like that by decreasing “unneeded” elements only on less powerful machines. So for example, a less powerful PC might show too few prey animals to keep performance reasonable since the gameplay doesn’t require as many, while a more powerful PC might have more prey animals if it can afford the hit to performance without framerate getting too low.
But a real eco-simulation wouldn’t do that, because changing the numbers on lower machines would break the ecosystem if it’s realistically simulated.
Obviously I understand you’re analyzing it as a real world, which I appreciate. Just thought I’d explain the computer and game reasons that are likely the explanation for those discrepancies from the real world.
The game already has an in game explanation and lore that gives facts as to how or why the ecosystem is the way it is. It's pretty good overall and i don't think it's really the whole devs did this for gameplay reasons and or some other common reason people usually use when it comes to games.
This was a great video, i love discussing the ecosystem in these games, specifically because of how some flora and fauna is clearly inspired by Earth organisms. Now as for your points in the video, there is in fact an explanation for most of the things you brought up!
Concerning the Mushroom caves: We actually have an explanation of how it's ecosystem survives in-game, one of the Degasi voice logs by Bart Torgal talks about the circle of life down there.
*"Lately I've been watching the crabsnakes. They ambush their prey as it tries to feed on the mushrooms they hide in. What they don't eat settles on the seabed, which fertilizes the mushrooms, which feeds the herbivores, and so the chain continues. Co-evolution gives me the fuzzies."*
Concerning the Blood Kelp: This biome works in a similar way to the Mushroom caves, but its ecosystem is actually intertwined with another, the Bulb Kush zone. To explain, according to the PDA the Crabsquids you can discover in the Blood Kelp evolved to have their EMP attack due to the prey they hunt, the Ampeels in the Bulb Kush zone. What the Crabsquids or Ampeels don't eat falls to the sea floor, which feeds the Blood Crawlers, the long-legged deep sea cousins of the Cave Crawlers you can find on the Aurora and islands. The poop from the Blood Crawlers feeds the local flora, which feeds the smaller herbivores, which feed the Ampeels and so the cycle completes itself.
Concerning the predator-to-prey ratio: This is less of a design flaw and more of a game limitation. As you've played the game you have likely noticed those 2D schools of fish you can't grab or interact with that often go through the terrain. These visual effects were added to simulate a larger ecosystem than what the game would allow for, unfortunately the devs couldn't implement as many creatures as these biomes would demand to self sustain themselves, otherwise the games performance would suffer, but lore-wise, there IS in fact enough of a herbivore presence to sustain an ecosystem.
Concerning predators, large and small, not moving between biomes: Once again a game limitation, although i would personally also attribute this as a design flaw as well. We have several PDA entries that tell us that predators hunt prey that seems to stick to other biomes, but due to AI limitations, we don't actually see this happening. One good excuse the game does give us are the Sea Dragons, before the Aurora crashed, there used to be an opening on the crash site that went all the way down to the inactive Lava Zone, which allowed the Dragons to come up and hunt for Reaper Leviathans. Unfortunately, when the ship crashed it blocked this exit, which the game explains as the only source of food the Sea Dragons have. Meaning, the 2 that we encounter are likely the last of their species and will starve to death before long.
Overall, the game does have some design flaws in it's realism that are brushed off as 'well its an alien ecosystem so it works', such as the leviathans constantly moving and not preserving energy. However for the most part, it makes an effort to make its ecosystems appear as realistic as possible, and i very much appreciate that in game development.
Actually most of the Leviathans are pretty self explained and easy to cover, Sea Dragons like you said have an in game explanation of their food source but they have been cut off and will likely die soon as the game itself says so that's pretty much as accurate and realistic as it gets for them, migration is explained in the game for multiple creatures and plants, even Leviathans such as the Ghost Leviathan which eats micro organisms which also basically explains how it's so constantly active, and it migrates for food and bigger territory, so honestly i don't see an issue here either, Sea Emperors are the same here too, but their species actually died out with the only 1 remaining forcing itself to live past it's lifespan and to at least have it's offspring live to continue it's species. Reefbacks again also eat mirco organisms and are slow moving but also migrate. Again pretty much done here too, the only Leviathan left is the Reaper which literally eats anything it can sink it's teeth in and that's honestly not that hard to explain or prove. So really the video seems to really push the idea that all these Leviathan would never likely survive or exist even tho the fact is they have all the means to survive accept for a few which the game even points out and pretty much confirms they won't survive for long. I would call this all busted tbh, because you gave a pretty clear explanation too about certain things that are proven that the ecosystem follows a cycle which even i knew about but found odd was never mentioned in the video, the game isn't made half baked, it has all the information you could possibly need to at least give an idea of how it works, it's not perfect but what is honestly ? This planet is dying, it has a bacterium that isn't native to the planet and is killing everything off, the ecosystem is adapting to work as best as it can or just die off over time, it's a unique and honestly not comparable to earth as earth is developed and healthy and isn't a carbon copy or even close.
There are actually three sea dragon leviathans, and I have no doubt they could still fit through the mountains corridor to hunt the reapers in the mountains biome. There's a reaper skeleton in the mountains corridor to support this. :)
@@Monody512 Interesting, still based on their lore those 3 won't survive long, maybe 1 for sure as there will be less competition for food, but it will struggle it's entire life until it can find a better solution, or have it's species die out completely.
The crab snakes sometime leave I think as they sometimes leave as in the pda in they attacked the life pod outside of the cave
Outstanding video, Maria. One of your best in that it integrates your gameplay with your passion and career. Add to that the way you integrated a sponsor that was very appropriate for the content of this video, and it is a blueprint for how videos should be made. Excellent job. As far as the lack of predatory fish, I think that the events that occurred in game, both the radiation and impact of the ship, and the invasion of the alien species, including the teleporting one, could have upset of devastated some of the smaller predators. Leaving the biggest ones to be forced to hunt the next best thing, the human swimming around. Great video, love your work. Finally, after your video ended, the next video played, and it was about Alex Ries, the biologist artist who created some original concepts of additional creatures in Subnautica. Very in depth examination of the species in the game. Search his name and "The Lost Aliens of Subnautica". The one I think should have been included was the Kitewing. Found here: th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxaDwLXtJv8oJBvXoVjH9cuTW6KTuMSrII
I think there’s a log about crab snakes actually going out occasionally to hunt since one life pod says that they goes out and tries to bite through the hull.
slight note about the leviathans: the ship had apparently landed atop a hole that lead into the active lava zone, which is why the reaper leviathans constantly swim around it, cause it *used* to be an open biome of its own. this is also how the sea dragon ate them via going up the same hole to what's now called the crash zone
Just wanna say I love this, and would love for more videos about this. Maybe about some other biomes in the game, or even Below Zero? The science behind things always fascinated me, fictional and unrealistic or not
Something that I just wanted to mention is that all of the leviathans that are on the surface actually mostly live in the void because the void only consists of microorganisms and leviathans meaning that there is a lot of food and competition in the void because the filter feeder leviathans consume the microorganisms to sustain themselves and then the predatory leviathans consume the filter feeders to sustain themselves.
I'm curious, what is your overall opinion on the idea of the ecosystem having evolved on a giant volcano crater, and the rest of the planet being this vast "ecological dead zone" with only micro-organisms and enormous ghost leviathans? The PDA data suggests they feed on the microscopic organisms kinda like baleen filter animals but at the same time their jaws suggest this wouldn't really suffice.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to say. The ecological dead zone seems to be somewhat inspired by the open ocean, where food is scarce and not many macro-organisms can be found. One of the things that strikes me as unlikely is how extremely fast and active all these predators are all the time. If you look at big predators on Earth, ther have long periods in which they are in somewhat of a lethargic stage. It would probably be energy-inefficient to be so active all the time, when you need to eat so much. That would probably be my main doubt regarding the existence of ghost leviathans. But this is very far from my expertise haha
@@Seamemaria Thank you for your answer. It's still great to hear your insights!
Cool review. Safe shallows is also my favorite biome. The best place is at the junction of Safe shallows, kelp forest and grassy plateau.
This was such a fun video thank you! Love your humour and the knowledge you share.
My explanation for this has always been the existence of Kharaa in the ecosystem. We can't treat this as an ecosystem that's sustainable, because it's NOT. This is a dying planet, whose lifeforms have been forced to develop the most extreme adaptations imaginable. There are so many predators because canonically creatures infected with Kharaa become more aggressive than normal (though this isn't actually seen in gameplay), so you need to be able to defend yourself. Not to mention animals like the Crabsquid, who've developed freakin EMPs, maybe to defend against the sudden arrival of Warpers.
Now, the Kharaa was only introduced around 1,300 years ago, which isn't nearly enough time for such drastic changes to happen under normal conditions. But again, these are *not* normal circumstances. Kharaa's main trait is that it speeds up random mutations(sort of like a super cancer for your whole body), which is eventually how it kills you. Not many things can survive suddenly growing more heart tubes or whatever (ouch). Now this would DRASTICALLY reduce the amount of time creatures have to live, but there's still a non-zero chance that they would find a mate and pass on their crazily mutated genes. After many many generations of this, eventually the only survivors WOULD be the ones that somehow managed to adapt to some of the random mutations that turned out to be useful(Like the Peeper's non-digesting stomach that they use to carry food for the Sea Emperor, a trait we KNOW only developed after the Kharaa's introduction).
Now again, this is not sustainable, which is why the vast majority of 4546B is a lifeless wasteland, we just happened to be super lucky to land close enough to the Sea Emperor that we get to see the final gasps of life on the planet.
Thank you for the write up, I was going to say something similar. Also if you haven't seen the sequel yet you should check it out.
Subnautica would be a great ecosystem to research and potentially live in, but the large number of predators will keep you on edge.
Like Australia?
@@Imbapiranha I don't know about that.
@@thunderzilla3521 Australia has the most dangerous fauna in the world isn't that common knowledge
The jellyshroom caves actually have one of the most well thought out ecosystems in the game. Its described in a degasi pda voicelog. The crabsnakes prey on oculi: the big peepers with purple eyes that (unnoticeably due to subnautica’s size perspective issue) are actually about the size of a human torso. The oculi prey on the jellyshrooms. Crabsnakes have a symbiotic relationship with these jellyshrooms, one of the conditions of which is that they defend it from predators and simultaneously get their energy needs in by ambushing predators of the jellyshrooms. What the crabsnake doesnt eat then is absorbed into the soil and serves as mineral food for the jellyshroom.
The lava zone, however, has no realism. For obvious reasons (lava lakes in water)
OMG this video is soooo amazing!!!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
The music sounds a LOT like something you'd hear in Subnautica, nice choice
Edit: I should probably also add that the video was really entertaining and interesting!
Logical conclusion: there's something that poops in those caves and hunts in the shallows and the mushroom forests where food is abundant, it hunts Stalkers if they leave the kelp, but doesn't go into the kelp to get them, and you never saw it because it knew exactly where you were the whole time and stayed out of sight, the same way as it's been avoiding leviathans the whole time, or maybe you never saw it because it's extremely well camouflaged and you swam right over it without ever noticing.
I like this explanation. What could this mysterious creature be?
Invisible aquatic bats confirmed. Ever see a fish in the shallows explode for no reason? A bat got it. Then it pooped in the caves.
@@Seamemaria Well, I started off thinking it was some sort of shark with really highly-evolved electrosensitivity, tracking neural activity, and the kelp somehow scrambled the signal, but my OC ("Original Character") for a _Doctor Who_ TTRPG (table-top role-playing game) is a candidate for the camouflage explanation. Helical body, octopus arms at both ends, all pink and white like the coral in your "Subnautica in real life" video, covered in structures like fan corals, themselves covered in cilia like comb jellies (Yes, this species does have the trait "attractive" and yes, that matters in the game), with enough ability to detect water currents and vibrations and chemical signatures to not need eyes, so the darkness in the caves wouldn't be a problem. I'd think your fancy scanners would have picked up some sort of signature from it, but maybe not if it stayed very still. Algiogenic and muscle-relaxant venoms in cnidocytes all over those frills make trying to grab one a very bad idea.
I say "it" because, hey, alien, so they can be cyclic hermaphrodites if I say they are. 10 days male, 3-5 days neuter, 10 days female, 3-5 days neuter, and they mate based entirely on personality and get counter-synchronised so that each couple is fertile both ways. Take _that,_ gender binary fundamentalists!
I called them Phtharraphaeraea, and had to look that spelling up just now. Meh. Just say "feather fairy." That's easy to remember.
@@Seamemaria Alternative predator: _extremely_ large seabird, but then it'd have to be nesting on the top of a sponge-like rocky island for the nutrients to be getting into the caves, wouldn't it?
I like how you bring in marine biology into subnatica 😁😁😁
When I started watching your videos (around your 4th Subnautica video), I knew that this video was something I wanted, and I'm so happy you finally did it! Much love, and I can't wait to see what else you put out!
coool work and stay hydrated
Now THIS is science!
From the PDA: While fully capable of tearing through the flesh of any creature in range, all evidence indicates that mature ghost leviathans feed on microscopic lifeforms in the waters around the edges of the inhabited zone.
Maybe the smaller ones can sustain themselves at least in part on the microorganisms of the lost river and other areas where they live, thus reducing the amount of large organisms they would need to consume.
Also the whole of the first Subnautica happens on top of a dead volcano so there would be a lot of food for microorganisms coming from the inside of 4546b out to the surface in that area which might be the fuel for the local ecosystems.
So basically Subnautica will be needing a few more patches and updates for the setting to be close to realistic lol
hehe just some =P
Theory: Lava Larva are at the bottom of the food chain, all the energy in the biome comes from the magma itself
Loved this video! Late that I am. Regardless, I’d like to pitch in with some tid bits!
Fun thing about the Leviathans, a lot of them actually have some reasoning or even fallout to show the effects of what you described. Ghost Leviathans for instance, while still capable of eating the prey we typically see, are also incredible filter feeders, which is how the adults survive our in the ecological dead zone. They feed on the millions of plankton undoubtedly out there and just, keep growing. Sea Dragons are the opposite, requiring decently sized prey to feed their carnivorous bodies, even dragging Reapers down to the Lava Zone for heftier meals, but the thing about the Dragons is, they’re dying out. PDA scans and general appearances of the species support the idea that the Sea Dragons are barely clinging to survival with numbers in the single digits, which would make sense thanks to a detail I’ll discuss in a minute. Reapers themselves have their pick of the potluck for potential food sources, whether that be smaller prey fish or bone and sand sharks, both of which are dominant near Reaper territory and are decently sized meals with little effective defense from the Reaper’s attacks and sonar hunting. And the Sea Emperor itself is also explained to feed on microorganisms and requires an extensive working ecosystem to flourish, hence the only one alive we see in game is hinted to be mentally influencing Peepers to swim through its enclosure’s vents to the surface and back, not only to spread the Emperor’s old and failing enzyme 42 to prolong the planet’s existence, but for Peepers to eat plant life and seeds, come back, and vomit them up, permitting the oddly wide range of plant life in the Emperor’s habitat, and thus her own survival.
Another thing I wanted to point out is that ecological death thing with the Sea Dragons. It would make far more sense if the Sea Dragons were more used to a substantially different 4546B, and are only now starting to take a big hit as the planet’s ecosystem rapidly changes. And rapidly changing it has been all thanks to the release of the bacteria. PDA data supports the thesis that the virus has ravaged 4546B, and caused a dramatic shift in the planet’s ecosystems and creatures ability to thrive. The Dunes and the areas surrounding the crash zone are an indicator of this, once places filled with more potential life than we see due to the bacteria’s effects and rampant killing off of many species before our arrival. The species we currently see only kept afloat thanks to the Sea Emperor’s efforts, and even then, the bacteria still manages to find its way into the sea’s animals.
With the Jellyshroom caves, I just wanted to add that the variant of the Peeper you find down there is said to have adapted to living in cave environments, so it’s likely the Oculus species are simply natives, and their existence draws in the Biters from the Creepvine Forests and other surrounding areas, seeking an easy meal. The crab snakes could then hypothetically end up feasting on both, and conserving energy by resting inside their jelly shrooms as opposed to constantly being on a patrol like we see in game for gameplay purposes, and as the PDA tells us, the crumbs and bits they leave behind from meals helps to fertilize the ground of their home shrooms, supporting the symbiotic relationship. To my knowledge the crabsnakes also lack eyes, which may benefit their low diet lifestyles.
Anyways! If anyone put up with reading all this, thank you! This was a wonderful video Maria, I just love the exploration of biology both in real life and in this game, so I figured I’d pitch in!
Another awesome video! The format you follow in presenting information in your videos is great! Nice transitions between scenes and topics. Really enjoyed this one.
Very nice video! I'd love to see an hypothesis on how creatures like the Reaper could be fit into a food network
They probably eat sand sharks and they most definitely eat peepers since you can feed those to them
in the coral reef part of subnautica there's also the fish that if you find them in the tunnels they do a suicide run at you, that's one of the aquatic lifeforms I'm not too fond of, there's one reaper class leviathan I've affectionately called bullseye because he/she always seems to find me it's kind of comforting and I also love the three legged underwater landstrider leviathans they have an interesting way of telling to mind your own bussiness plus they're really cute as well
I love it like always, good job !
Great video !
Did you play In Other Waters ? When I played it I thought a lot about you because it revolves a lot about biomes/ecosystems on an alien planet. You should give it a try, it's really good
2:56 There is actually a carnivorous species that is also listed under the carnivore section in the PDA - the Crashfish.
Great video
After watching this video I have come up with a little theory regarding the crabsnake's food source and sustainability. In one of the radio logs a survivor states that there was some kind of snake thing trying eat through his lifepod. But his life pod is not in the jellyshroom caves but the grassy plateaus, right outside of one of the cave entrances. There are no snake looking things in the grassy plateaus so I assume that while we don't see it in-game, crabsnakes do exit their home biome for more food, and if that is the case, it is likely that other predators do the same, we just don't get to see it since it might make the game a little too difficult or something like that.
I wish the developers would make a proper subnautica sequel.
Love this! Wonderful and educative and fun video!
I loved the video! Educational and fun. Oh, and I really liked the jokes. XD
Yes, it exists. Just wait till you get a view of my bath tub. 😁
in defense of the leviathans, the game actually does give a good explanation to how they are able to survive. the ghost leviathans are alot like whale sharks, they feed off microbes, the sea dragon leviathan is implied to hunt the reaper leviathan, in an old version of the game a massive hole was below the Aurora that led straight to the lava zone, and you can see some reaper carcasses down there. the reaper is harder to defend, BUT it is assumed that Aurora crash site used to be a rich ecosystem, so we can deduce that there was likely some sort of prey for the reaper to hunt, now extinct due to radiation.
possible partial explanations for the sustainability of 4546B deep sea and cave biomes:
1. jellyshroom caves:
the jellyshroom caves are home to large amounts of oculus fish, cousins of the peeper. the prescence of these fish, along with jellyshrooms, could explain the sustainability of the crabsnake species.
the jellyshroom is possibly edible:
from the jellyshroom databank entry:
"(...)Membrane structure suggests vulnerability to predation, but evidence thereof is lacking(...)"
2. blood kelp:
again, here the local flora comes in clutch.
from the bloodvine databank enty:
"(...) The vibrant red oils which seep from the bloodvine coagulate into semi-hard pustules, which frequently fall loose and form a vital foodstuff for the local ecosystem, (...)"
the blood oil seems to be the main source of nutrition to the local species, which then work its way up the food chain
3.lavazone:
beside the plentiful sources of lava and the nutritional value thereof, during exploration you may find the skeleton of a reaper leviathan. the reaper leviathan has been brought down there by the sea dragon. the remains of the reaper and their brethren may be a major source of nutrition to the local fauna.
in addition to all of the above stated biomes and their possible sustainability, peepers can be found all throughout the planet. these peepers have accesses to the primary containment facility, which seems to work on a different ecological framework.
lastly, it is important to note that the ghost leviathan is not a predator, but rather survive on a microbe based diet (somewhat similar to earths whales)
from the ghost leviathan databank entry:
"(...) all evidence indicates that mature ghost leviathans feed on microscopic lifeforms in the waters around the edges of the inhabited zone (...)"
i like how u stop the music abruptly when somethings funny were about to pop out
This is an interesting video
I think the jellyshroom caves work only because mushrooms eat organic food and doesnt use sunlight soley. I think the jellyshrooms survive off of dieing crabsnakes and crabsnakes survive off of going to the surface(they do this sometimes, i named one Jerry and i loved it) and hunting in the grassy platues. Surface animals coming down into the jellyshroom biome helps it sustain itself further.
Thats just my thoughts on this biome, i dont have any idea on how any of the other cave ones could possibly work
maria if you enjoyed the game you should to a secound gameplay. why not ? this time maybe establish some of your own chalanges .like for example scanning everything. or finding new secrets. the map is pretty huge there are some things you dint see yet. also you could build your base in another place or even play without a base, by living in the cyclops . i would definatly watch another of your series
If Subnautica 3 were to come out would you play it?
YES!!
As would I, also something else about the next title. It's going to be made by a South Korean game company
"It also has this place where I will, one day, buy a house."
Hello, neighbour!
Unknown Worlds Entertainment should put you on the payroll to help them develop Subnautica 3.
About the safe shallows not having predators thats just not true. Most people often overlook this detail, but the crashfish (which is pretty common in the safe shallows) is listed as a predator in the pda, not a scavenger not a herbivore, a predator. The crash fish could come out and hunt smaller fish in the shallows and only explode when it sees bigger animals. There is also the fact that stalkers rarely come out and hunt in the safe shallows. Both these predators could be enough to keep the herbivore population in check
As much as I like realism, there is always going to be a need for game mechanics, since it is... well... a game...
I applaud developers that do try to get things as realistic as possible and I think the developers of Subnautica did an awesome job.
For a planet as 4546B to work as it is presented, it seems that either some kind of extreme low calorie requirement is needed, or the organisms could tap into other sources.
Because I cannot imagine being able to build up big mass without needing much carbon intake, perhaps the water could be saturated with carbon (hard water) and the organisms have found a way to take in non-organic carbon.
This would take away from need to consume large amounts of prey. But hunting would still provide aditional calorie, which could give any organisms an edge.
Maria, please play SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS next. You can even play it in-between HORIZON. It's not that long.
I think as some pointed out, the crash harmed the biosphere here. Also many many MANY years of Karaaa exposure has begun to damage the ecosystem. Note the Sparse reef and its baron landscape. Your PDA says it cannot explain why the lack of life there. But it is likely we are seeing a dying eco system that even if the Karass is cured will take decades to begin to heal and re balance itself.
I can't agree with conclusion that preditors don't go for food to another bioms. For example sea dragons were hunting on reapers (you can find a lot of their skeletons in lava zone) before Aurora crashed. According the lore junior ghost leviathans travels to surface from lost river while growing and they can go out of the cave but don't do it while someone is looking (maybe player confuses them).
Or I just wish 4546b was real and that's the reason I wrote it
Some predators don't seem to go for food to other biomes, not all, but some, like the crab snakes or the lava lizards. But even then, with the amount of very active huge predators in all these biomes (except for the shallows perhaps), one would expect many more prey items. Just splash some more Garryfish in there and we are golden=P I just love the name Garryfish
@@Seamemaria Most of the large predators such as Leviathans eat micro organisms, Sea Emperor, Reefbacks, Sea Treaders, Ghost Leviathans, literally all eat Mirco-organisms or minerals that are in the water or sea floor in the case of the Sea Treaders. The only Leviathans that actively hunt for prey are the Sea Dragons and Reapers, the Sea Dragons are already explained to hunt Reapers but have been cut off from their food source and are a dying species with only a couple left, so the game actually in fact literally gives evidence and explanation that realistically represents exactly what you said would be the case. Also the fact that Sea Dragons are dying out means more food source for the rest of the creatures in that area of the biome, also Reapers tend to hunt anything they can catch so really it's not hard for them to find food, and they migrate, literally all the leviathans in the game do or have a lore related explanation as them actually migrating. Sea Emperors and Ghost Leviathans both migrate from biomes to the Ecological Dead Zone once almost fully grown to have a bigger territory and to eat more Micro-Organisms as their main food source, Reefbacks also migrate around with their pod as said in the game itself, they are slow moving and don't require a lot of energy, even other lifeforms feed of their backs filled with coral which would also give them in turn some sustainability considering how many micro-organisms these would produce and other such waste products from other lifeforms going on their backs, Sea Dragons used to migrate all the way to the surface to hunt Reapers, Reapers used to live in the dunes but ever since the Aurora crash they migrated towards to load noise of it and have expanded their territory and available food sources. Other big predators such as the Crabsquids you can discover in the Blood Kelp evolved to have their EMP attack due to the prey they hunt, the Ampeels in the Bulb Kush zone. What the Crabsquids or Ampeels don't eat falls to the sea floor, which feeds the Blood Crawlers, the long-legged deep sea cousins of the Cave Crawlers you can find on the Aurora and islands. The poop from the Blood Crawlers feeds the local flora, which feeds the smaller herbivores, which feed the Ampeels and so the cycle completes itself. Same with Crabsnakes and the Jellyshroom caves. The devs actually put a lot of thought and explanation, the information in the game is all there, it's not perfect or complete but nothing really is, the planet isn't a perfect condition and is frankly dying, it's not a situation you can compare because Earth is 99% water based planet, it doesn't have a bacterium that is killing off the entire ecosystem/not native to the planet itself, it doesn't have the same overall ecosystem or trend in terms of how the creatures reproduce or how their biology functions in general. The game to me is as close to realistic as any game has ever come with such a big difference in nature but yet so close at the same time.
now for an unrelated comment: for your criticism that there are way too many giant predators for the rest of the foodchain, I think it's a game limitation, the developpers want the players to see all these giants animals, which could exist given sufficient food, but now ask yourself: how much bigger would the map of subnautica need to be to support the same number of giant predators you see in it? 10 times bigger? 100 times bigger? Now imagine how long it would take you to go fetch Kyanite if the map was 100 times bigger.
You get the point, I don't think subnautica is supposed to show the ecosystem as it would really be, rather a shrinked down version with all the most intresting parts right next to each other so that you don't spend literal hours or days swimming to the next biome.
"Someday I will buy a house there"... lol, can we be roomies?
Lifeform explanation got me laughing pretty hard. :D
There are a lot of games and movies that could be immensely improved, if the programmers/directors consulted an actual scientist. Most of the time they seem to go for the rule of cool, but movies like The Martian show that the general public may actually like realistic fiction.
That's true. But If I would have to guess, I would say that the developers of Subnautica actually put quite a lot of effort into researching ecology and biology. They provide really interesting and realistic explanations for a lot of the behaviours and physiology of some of these organisms. But of course, the game wouldn't be the same without some of the overly-aggressive predators ;)
Fun fact, these devs had actual consultants and biologist and people helping them work out the ecosystem.
Love your video! Its quite an interesting topic that was in my mind for a long time. However I really think you did miss a point or two with this one.
Firstly, due to its being a game its likely that small predeators were not designed to migrate to other zones. If stalkers were to migrate ingame to shallows, a new player would have a terrible experience. But there are some hints that predeators do leave their biom to find food (Biggest example being, Sea dragon). Its simply not within the game itself.
Secondly, the three largest predeators are all nomadic. Sea Dragon takes long trips to the surface to lure Reaper Leviathians into the depths before they can trap them, its within their PDA. Its also worth mentioning that Sea Dragons are nearly extinct, just like the massive predeators that lived before us. So perhaps it is a creature that is just a relic of the pass? As for Ghost Leviathian, they are only predeatorial during their juvenile. Once they are big enough, they venture into the dead zone where they live a life of only eating micro organisms. Their attacks are solely territorial, as its written in the PDA. As for Reaper Leviathians, its simply stated in the PDA, the biom where they essentially live is called "Dunes" which PDA adresses as their main migration track. They also live near the mountain, which is a rather big and vast ecosystem filled with food for them to munch on!
As for final, I really wish you'd talk about the ecological dead zone. A ecosystem that consists only Ghost Leviathians and micro organisms since leviathians simply kill anything that comes near. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, is that something possible?
That's interesting
I chalked most of the long term survival of the ecosystem being an indirect result of the aliens interferance. Since they have vents going throughout the area that the peepers seem to love getting sucked into. I just assumed that peepers get fed to various biomes coincidentally and this allows the biomes to last despite the lack of natural prey.
I also assumed that the shallows was a sort of breeding grounds and the prey fish would spread outwards over time, I also assumed that preditor fish would still either swim upwards periodically to hunt during scarcity or turn to hunting other preditors or even canablisim.
But honestly most of my assumptions were based on the idea that the various fishes weren't locked into each biome and other minor issues (game mechanics basically).
Edit: Even now as I edit this I had a thought. The planet was locked down for ages, long enough that 3 ships got shot down and for an ancient civilisation of space aliens to vanish. How would our PDA that doesn't have access to the main system know what anything on the planet is?
I'm starting to consider the thought that the PDA is not giving us acurate data but is instead feeding us guesses based on existing information and scans of the wildlife. So this information comes off as guess work and assumption rather then any practical research.
someone is making a fan made dlc mod for subanutica called the return of the antients its not out yet but when its out maybe you should play it
Cenote Angelita has an underwater brine river!
That would be cool yet scary
and leaviath can eat another leaviath
I think a lot of the large predators eat each other though it wouldn't have been coded in anyways
Ótimo vídeo 👍
The reason no ones ever seen a meg is because the reapers ate them all
Hey I love your Subnautica 1 & 2 playthroughs. There is this new underwater survival game, its called Death in the water 2. Maybe you'd like to check it out and do a play through. :)
I wish they hire you for Subnautica 3 :D
The difference in biomes could lie in the nature of the soil there. Plants can't grow on unforgiving soils after all.
You have forgotten one key parameter, there... the presence of Architects installations. Those pump the excess heat from the volcano to maintain the facilities in function; thus stabilizing the volcano and making it safe for the biodiversity.
The other parameter is the Khara bacteria itself which kills a number of animals whereas the enzyne carried from the tank where the big Leviathan is prisoner helps others to stay alive.
Plus we don't really know the real life cycle of those animals, if we are lucky, they are alive in Summer and we are in Summer and they hibernate or their metabolism is quite slowed down in Winter?
nyes
So long as it exists without all those reapers or leviathans or whatever they were called...
The thing is Planet 4546b is not earth so things very well could act and or be different then on earth also on 4546b sea dragons did go to the surface to eat reapers so they did eat reapers until the tunnel they used to get to the reapers was blocks and all the others tunnels are not big enough for them also maybe the Sea dragons learned to eat magma/Lava like I don't know how but sense this IS a alien and this is not earth I guess it is possible maybe
I enjoyed this vid.
Shallows don't have predators because of gamedesign. Usually in games start location must be safe, so player can learn basic controls and understand gameplay. The far player progresses, the more complex and hard and dangerous game will be, modern game design dictates it. But in the past, in 80-s, it wasn't like that. On the start of the game's industry a lot of games had constant game level of hardness. So in those old games enemies at start and in the end were dangerous. But it is not comfortable for player to die just in the start of the game, he can be disappointed and drop the game. today that old approach is forgotten.
6:18 what is that thing?
Love this video and the jokes are very good
You always so interesting, Maria! ^0^