Review: Subnautica

We are used to survival-games, as a rule, take place in the most uncomfortable conditions - darkness, darkness, impenetrable forest, scorched earth, rain, frost on the skin and hoarfrost on the screen, headphones are howling by zombies, then roaring some kind of radioactive storm. I want to do everything necessary and never come back here again. But in Subnautica , on the contrary, you often want not to survive, namely to live ...

From our preview of 2016 you know the necessary details. The action takes place on the oceanic planet covered with water, over which the scientific and reconnaissance ship "Aurora" crashed. The main character barely managed to get into the rescue capsule and landed near the place of the fall. 

There is little water around, there are not enough food and drink reserves, there are no links with the motherland and the rest of the survivors, and we need to survive somehow in the midst of this - to get food, to look for resources, to make important items, in order to eventually find a way to fly from the planet.

But fly somehow you are not in a hurry. We swim among reefs and corals, we catch a colorful fish, which almost goes to our hands, we prepare something nutritious from it, we scan various flora and fauna, we glance around and are amazed at how realistic the splashes of water flowing down the The screen, or how beautiful the local sunsets, changing the color of the waves. Especially incomparable Subnautica in the helmet of virtual reality. Exactly so, it seems, should look interactive video reviews advertising diving tours in Bali.

Moreover, if you want, you can both complicate your task, playing in the mode of one life, where death immediately leads to "geymoveru", and to make it as easy as possible, having turned off dependence on food and drink. And in the "Creative" mode there is no health meter at all, all recipes and drawings are available initially - play, swim and build in your own pleasure.

However, the success and attractiveness of Subnautica is explained by the fact that beauty and meditation are combined with very detailed, well-developed survival-mechanics.

Even if you turn off the factors of hunger, dehydration and oxygen, which make you constantly catch someone, cook and every five minutes to surface to get air into the lungs, there will remain a very impressive system of "crafting" everything and everything. It is implemented very conveniently, visually and allows you to make not only obvious things like repair tools, knives and fins, but also whole submarines, bathyscaphes, exosuits and even full-fledged bases that still need to be properly designed, personally laying pipes, placing various nodes and power stations. Then all this can and should be improved, making modules and "upgrades" from rare resources, allowing you to swim faster, deeper to dive, to breathe longer and better protect yourself from a variety of predators.

In addition, Subnautica is no worse, and in some ways better than No Man's Sky , translates the sense of exploration - we constantly find new biomes, scan and study the local flora and fauna, learning about their properties, sometimes very unexpected and useful. Also, after scanning, many new drawings become available - this stimulates to constantly explore and study, to sink deeper into the depths of the alien ocean, simultaneously experiencing feelings of fear, delight and anticipation of new discoveries. 

Finally, in Subnauticaeven there is a plot - quite interesting, not background, as it often happens in such games. He, of course, unobtrusive, does not abound in moral dilemmas and cut scenes, but keeps in suspense. Before finally building a rocket and flying home, we will have to learn the terrible secret of the planet, get infected by an unknown foul, find a medicine from it and talk with the local sea Emperor. And in the intervals we receive radio signals from the survivors, we search for their capsules, we investigate the bases and laboratories of the ancient race of the Precursor, and sometimes even we get out on land.

In the long-awaited release version of Subnautica, the authors improved the interface, changed part of the drawings and the set of necessary resources for them, reduced the power of some "upgrades" for our underwater transport. But the essence remains the same: Subnautica- perhaps the most beautiful for today "survival", which often resembles a diver's simulator, who went to rest and swim somewhere in the Maldives or islands in the Pacific Ocean. But at the same time there is also a very detailed, hardcore survivor mechanics that allows you to build submarines and entire bases, and an interesting story, and the sensation of a researcher constantly discovering something new. The only thing that is lacking is the cooperative. But in the release version there were some hints (it's primarily about the time capsules), which allow us to hope that sooner or later multiplayer will be added to the game. 

Rate: 10/10 the only minus is that there is no multiplayer :)