![]() ![]() First-person-perspective is often a great way to immerse the player in a spooky environment. It did a good job of making you feel alone, out of your element, and surrounded by the dark and deep. It’s content padding of the worst order, and reduces many areas into straightforward content grinds. It’s another thing to be told “collect X amount of Y” in order to unlock the next area. It’s one thing to go scrounging about for titanium because you need to craft a flashlight. But, much like The Long Dark‘s story mode before it, it also has a bad habit of aggressively pointing you in a specific direction and forcing you to do busy makework tasks. (For what it’s worth, more earthbound gamers may prefer the PS4 title Stranded Deep, set in a Pacific Ocean teeming with an enjoyably unrealistic amount of aquatic life, the likes of which are rarely seen outside an Attenborough documentary.)īelow Zero is plot heavy, giving players specific, story-driven reasons for exploring more of the frozen planet, discovering more flora and fauna. The Subnautica games do that, only with extraterrestrial takes on familiar sea creatures. I’m an occasional scuba diver, and I can attest to the wonder of coming across a school of fish, or trading a friendly hello with a curious seal. Frankly, if you were to ask this reviewer what he wants in a game, “alien ice sharks” is pretty well the top of the list. In Subnautica: Below Zero, you star as a scientist who has crash-landed smack dab in the middle of a frozen ocean planet, surrounded by bright, beautiful (and sometimes scary) aquatic alien life. And if Below Zero is any indication, the story can simply get in the way. You don’t need a compelling narrative to go along with it. The joy of this genre is largely predicated on discovery: you keep pushing on, because you want to discover more things. ![]() In the early years, both of these “early access” titles thrived in their open-ended survival modes, only to lose some of that charm the moment they grafted on a narrative. Subnautica and TLD also followed a similar path in one other, key respect. Like The Long Dark, Subnautica is beautiful and filled with wonderful sights – if you survive long enough to find them. Like The Long Dark, the Subnautica series has been around for a while, starting off as an “early access” success and eventually evolving into two distinct releases: the original Subnautica (2018) and now Below Zero (2021). You don’t necessarily win The Long Dark, you just learn to get better at it. Thrown headfirst and ill-equipped into a bitter Canadian winter, you must hurry to find shelter, food, water, and heat, all while contending with the ever-looming threat of darkness (the game runs on an accelerated day/night cycle), hungry wolves, and the harshest of elements. The goal in The Long Dark, at least in its sandbox Survival mode, isn’t to complete the game so much as to survive as long as possible. ![]() That rhythm is one of death and reincarnation. As I wrote in my review, the genre works best when it’s finely balanced: The pinnacle of the genre remains, in my opinion, The Long Dark, a Canadian-set/Canadian-developed survival adventure set in a hostile, frozen climate. All games that force you to focus on the minutiae – the ever-dwindling stamina metre, your character’s empty stomach and parched throat, the joys of discovering an abandoned cabin. All games that simulate, effectively, the experience of being lost and stranded in a harsh environment, barely struggling to survive. That’s the conclusion I’ve reached after a decade-plus of This War of Mine, Don’t Starve, Stranded Deep, and a dozen or more open-world survival games. The world is too big, and there are too many survival games. Subnautica: Below Zero (Switch/PS5) Review: Space Sharks! SURVIVOR: SEASON 2 But boy does this game not know how to shut up. Like The Long Dark before it, it has a certain, frigid charm. Yet another open-world survival game, except this time it’s colder! IS IT GOOD? Subnautica: Below Zero (Switch/PS5) Review: Space Sharks! WHAT IS IT? Available Now for PS5/Switch (Reviewed), PS4, Windows, macOS, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Our review of Subnautica: Below Zero, developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. ![]()
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