Subnautica: Below Zero – A Continuation to a Great Game

Subnautica

Are you a fan of deep sea adventures? If you are, we present to you Subnautica: Below Zero. What makes Subnautica: Below Zero Special? At first, Below Zero, just like Subnautica, is quite a classic survival game. With minimal diving equipment on, you hunt fish for food or liquids in a harsh marine world, break up stones for valuable resources or scan scrap to unlock new blueprints for useful equipment – diving is much more pleasant with fins or a full oxygen tank. Subnautica: Below Zero also wants to offer a gripping campaign. A particularly drastic step shows how serious the developers are: After more than a year of Early Access, they simply throw the existing story overboard and start all over again.

For the fans, the story about researcher Robin, who always communicates with her sister by radio while she investigates the alien planet, was not emotional enough. In addition, with Jill Murray, a new author (including Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Shadow of the Tomb Raider) is now taking care of the plot, who accordingly brings a lot of experience and of course her own imagination. Now Robin is looking for her alone because she is lost somewhere in the freezing cold. The game has been on Steam for a while now and you can try out for yourself the newly staged beginning.

The most important features at a glance:

New biomes: You explore an arctic region of the water planet from Subnautica, which also offers new environments such as ice caves, thermal springs or glacial lakes.

More land masses: This time there is a lot to explore not only in the water, but also on land.

Survival mechanics: You look for food, water and blueprints to survive and to craft new equipment or even entire habitats. There are new useful aids such as a hover bike for going ashore. In return, the icy cold comes as a new danger.

Interesting background: You will discover a lost alien civilization and reveal its secrets.

A gripping storyline: You go as Robin in search of your sister and explore the strange planet. The heroine and other characters with whom she interacts on the way are even fully voiced this time.

Who is Below Zero for?

Survival games abound, but few, like The Long Dark or Subnautica: Below Zero, offer a real story as a framework that should sweep you away. If you are missing that with the genre representatives, you have come to the right place. In addition, you do not just explore an ordinary barren ice landscape, but dive into a motley ocean full of bizarre creatures such as cuddly bulging-eye penguins or find remnants of a mysterious alien people somewhere in the blue expanses. Anyone who likes to go on a discovery tour and would like to experience a refreshingly different location will get their money’s worth. Even if you do not feel like collecting resources, fighting for survival or crafting, Below Zero offers a free mode without survival mechanics. So, you can concentrate fully on exploring or building.

What do we like so far? What do we not like?

Subnautica: Below Zero’s strengths

An innovative scenario: We are rarely allowed to explore underwater worlds in games. If they are also on other planets, they stand out from the standard diet with exotic alien fish.

A real story: the quality of the plot cannot currently be assessed. However, the new approach sounds exciting and heroine Robin already seemed likeable to us in the test of the old version. The staging is also of high quality thanks to the new voice output.

Creative and diverse construction mechanics: Subnautica lets us assemble a lot ourselves, from the flashlight to the complete habitat as a new base.

It is worth exploring: On the go, you can not only unlock new blueprints by scanning the area. Attentive players even track down the remains of an ancient alien civilization and learn more about the former inhabitants and their disappearance.

A flexible gaming experience: Like Subnautica, Below Zero offers different modes. If you don’t feel like survival, you can let off steam in creative mode without pressure. Hardcore with Permadeath offers a challenge for this. In the classic survival mode you only lose a few items when you die.

Subnautica: Below Zero’s weaknesses

Due to the big upheaval in the story, the previous save states no longer work. If you want to play the latest updates, you have to start over, for better or worse. This is annoying when you have been immersed in the underwater sandbox for many hours. 

The only big downer is that there will be no VR version this time. According to the developer, it was simply not worth it because the interest of the players was already too low in the predecessor. If you enjoy survival, crafting, exploring and also a good story, you should definitely have Subnautica: Below Zero on your radar by the launch at the latest.

Top Games and Upcoming Releases