5/5 ★ – bladeofcalling's review of Subnautica.

I’ve been playing this game on and off for 5 years, but it’s only now that I just beat it. And wow. What an experience. The game starts off simple enough, but very quickly becomes tense and intimidating. And it will maintain that atmosphere until the credits roll. You become braver, and you get more knowledge of your surroundings, but the game never ever becomes less scary. The gameplay loop is addictive and doesn’t get old. And the progression feels very clear and natural in regards to equipment and biomes, etc. It was also nice to just explore and see what you could find/encounter. The ambience of the ocean life around you, the music and lighting, and never knowing what lurks just out of sight is an unrivalled experience. I think the biggest drawback of the game is the story. It gets the job done, and the mystery of it does a lot of heavy lifting. But once the veil is lifted, it becomes obvious that it lacks depth. However, the audio logs you find throughout the game of the degasi crew were incredibly enjoyable. Something about knowing that you weren’t the first one to brave 4546B, hearing about their experiences, and the progression of how it went wrong for them was so interesting. I was always looking forward to finding out more. This game is definitely best experienced without a guide, or at least with as little guidance as possible. It doesn’t have any sort of map that you can use. Which is intimidating at first, but I think it’s brilliant. It forces you to get to know your environment better. Whenever the game would give you vague directions for a key location, I often found myself drawing maps in a notebook just using the compass and landmarks. I was always very successful with that and it was deeply satisfying, much more fun than using a provided map or marker. Using a guide only serves to take away from some of the games most memorable moments like that. Subnautica is such a phenomenal experience. It’s not overly complicated, but the world and setting that they’ve created is just so perfect. I don’t think it’s meant to be a horror game, but it certainly feels like one to me, which only adds to the experience I think. Final rating 9/10