There are certain moments in my gaming past I’d love to somehow wipe from my brain just so I could experience them again, fresh and unspoiled. Plunging into the sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying, sometimes disorienting aquatic world of Subnautica

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“ One of the most unexpected things about Subnautica is that it’s legitimately terrifying.

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“ Positional audio became my best friend in figuring out what types of creatures were around.

Subnautica Screenshots 13 IMAGES

“ The plot goes as deep as the foreboding depths.

One of the most unexpected things about Subnautica, in comparison to other games in its genre, is that it’s legitimately terrifying. I don’t mean the tension of possibly losing my inventory when being chased by a shark. I’m talking about the kind of fear I feel when playing Amnesia or Outlast. Drifting in the open water by moonlight, knowing the sea floor may be hundreds of meters below me and safety is nowhere in sight, all while the echoing wails of massive, predatory leviathans resonate from somewhere in the inky black, never failed to make my heart rate rise. Wait - did that last one sound closer? As an absolute masochist when it comes to horror, I found these moments delightfully unsettling.The crafting system is robust, if fairly straightforward: you gather resources from the ocean floor to build expansive, modular seabases and unlock new tools. The major turning points are when you unlock the Seamoth, and later the much larger Cyclops, which allow you to reach deeper biomes without being crushed like a tin can and thus access higher-tier resources. The progression dragged in a couple spots - like when you first get the Seamoth but still can’t access most of the resources needed to upgrade its diving depth. Building a scanning room at my seabase was a big help there.On the other hand, my immersion was often disrupted by huge amounts of pop-in and jarring level of detail changes, especially when operating a fast vehicle like the Seamoth. There are no draw-distance sliders in the options, which was frustrating as my PC was able to handle Subnautica’s max settings with a stable framerate. I would have loved to push the boundaries a bit more to try to smooth that out.When the graphics are fully rendered, though, they're striking and communicative. The variety of alien life strikes a balance between nods to recognizable sea creatures and alien weirdness that made me want to swim up close to even the tiniest fish and crustaceans you admire the detail. Occasionally, this resulted in me getting a bite taken out of my face - but in general, the shape and sound of a creature tells you what you need to know at a glance. Predators look like predators, with sleek outlines and prominent teeth, while less fearsome fauna tends to reflect its role in the ecosystem with a more welcoming silhouette.Perhaps most praiseworthy of all, it doesn’t pull that “Good luck finding the main story!” nonsense so many other open-world survival games are guilty of. Clear map landmarks and a short-wave radio continue to provide the clues throughout to nudge you in the right direction, so you never feel like you absolutely have to go poring over a wiki to figure out what to do next.