Subnautica: The Reason I've Done NOTHING For Over A Month

I am heavily addicted to resource management games. The sad part is, they don't even have to be that good for my attention span to be broken by them for weeks on end. I don't know what it is, because I clearly don't dedicate that level of attention to my own life, so the allure of doing so in a digital medium is kind of a mystery to me. I probably should see someone about this.

Regardless, Subnautica is many things, but it is NOT a bad game. In fact, it's quite a clever game. Equal parts relaxing and terrifying depending on what it is you need to do, this game is going to pack some major punch when it's finally done.

Currently in early access, Subnautica is completely worth the $20 I spent on it, even when all of its bits and pieces don't work quite as well as they should. You are, it seems, the lone survivor of the crash of the mining vessel The Aurora. You've landed in an unknown, uncharted planet that has a surface comprised of at least 90% water.

Now you must survive.

Nameless, faceless protagonist that you are, thankfully you have a handy dandy 3D printer on your life pod, and have landed on a planet that can fabricate known resources so that you have a basis for your means to survive. Locating and collecting said resources is the challenge.

There are four modes by which you can choose to play the game. Creative, Freedom, Survival, and Hardcore. Each mode offers a vastly different play type.

Creative means you don't have to worry about oxygen, health, or resources. You've already collected all of the things you need to craft a livable environment. You simply go out and build. The only bad thing about creative is that it completely nerfs story mode, so there's no way to actually progress in the game.

Freedom means you don't have to worry about managing resources, just oxygen and health. The story still exists and you still need to search for constructables. Survival is the same as Freedom, only with hunger and hydration being added to the oxygen and health chart.

Hardcore is all of what Survival mode offers, but with permadeath. I would play this only if you really hate yourself, because remember, you're in the ocean. Everything is going to kill you, and no matter how long you play you will eventually forget about your oxygen levels at some point in time.

Mechanically speaking, Subnautica is all about exploration and resource management. There are ample materials around the planet that you must collect in order to construct a liveable area under water (or above if you find one of the rare floating islands) and that means going out into the depths of the planet to find them, more often than not.

And of course, as with all games, 'here there be monsters'. You'll come face to face at some point in time with the reaper leviathan, which is currently the most terrifying creature in the game, but the developer team assures everyone that later horrors and atrocities will make their way into the game over time.

Sea Emperor concept art

Currently, aside from the Leviathan, the only real challengers for survival are the barracuda-esque Stalker fish, the crash fish, the sand shark, the cave crawlers, and the biter fish. I've seen a few other gamers on YouTube run into the shockers and the bleeders, but I've thus far encountered the areas those enemies are supposed to spawn in and turned up with nothing (not complaining).

The really nice part about Subnautica is that it's community forum is pretty up to date on things. The community at large is very responsive, and I've already heard from some of the dev team themselves when reporting some issues I felt pretty major that I've run into during gameplay. Call me old fashioned, but I like to know when I'm being listened to.

At 24 hours of gameplay (and after one major update) I am having one pretty severe issue that's since stopped my game, but my problem appears to be somewhat isolated at this point. And if you start playing now, should you even have the same bug as me, you likely won't find it an issue for quite some time.

I can't wait to get started again however. This small road block has not deterred my desire to play; and once you unlock the story behind Subnautica it simply becomes all the more captivating. I already have two underwater sea bases, and one above water (hello floating island number two) and I'm super excited to be able to rebuild my Seamoth and get that Cyclops submarine going. There's a lot more to explore, and even when I'm done the developers still won't have added everything.

To learn more about the game, go here: http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Subnautica_Wiki

Start playing today!

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All images were obtained from the Subnautica wiki.