http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/Subnautica

— Bart Torgal "This is the first time I've seen sunlight in months. After all that time in the deep I'd been dreaming of it. Now that I'm back here, I'm finding it hard to enjoy alone..."

Advertisement:

Subnautica is a survival game developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, creators of the well-received Half Life 1 mod Natural Selection and its sequel. Having spent almost four years in Early Access, and with its V1.0 deadline pushed back five times - from September 2016 to January 2017, then to February 2017, then to May 2017, once more to September 2017, and finally to 2018 - the game has fully launched on PC as of January 23, 2018. It receives one stable update per month and regular small updates for people who play in experimental mode. The game is available for the PC, Xbox One, Mac, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

The game is set on an alien ocean world, designated Planet 4546B. The player is the sole survivor of a crashed capital-class ship named the Aurora. The lifepod with which you escaped the Aurora's destruction is equipped with a fabricator, which you must use to cook fish, disinfect water, craft tools, and more. You must explore the underwater landscape of Planet 4546B to find resources and blueprints, build seabases and vehicles, and discover just why the Aurora crashed in the first place, all the while trying to survive the dangers of the deep. All the same, Planet 4546B is filled with strange and beautiful biomes, inhabited by a rich collection of creatures that are no less fascinating than they are dangerous.

Advertisement:

The main draw of the game is that it takes place almost exclusively underwater. This means the player can move up and down in addition to forward and back, and threats can come from any angle. The game is heavily exploration based, and is one of the few notable survival games for actually featuring a specific set world to explore, rather than a randomly generated one.

Subnautica is also noteworthy for taking Minecraft's occasional forays into using Survival Horror tropes to instead really lean heavily on the genre for extensive sections of the game without quite fully crossing the boundary. This makes for a remarkably tense atmosphere with bouts of both terror and wonder. In short, it is a plot-heavy survival crafting game with added OMG.

A standalone Expansion Pack titled Subnautica: Below Zero has been released to Steam Early Access on the 30th of January 2019, set in an icy region of 4546B.

Advertisement:

Subnautica contains examples of the following tropes:

open/close all folders

All Games

Subnautica

Subnautica: Below Zero

Giant Enemy Crab: The Rock Puncher, and the scrapped Grabcrab.

Hover Bike: The Snowfox, useful for speeding across the ice, but incapable of crossing water.

Lily-Pad Platform: Subverted. There is a lilypad biome, but you can't walk on them without falling through.

Pointy-Haired Boss: The CEO of the Alterra division overseeing 4546B operations. He contacts Robin through her branch supervisor (her sister) to chew her out for the mess taking place on the planet. Even though none of what happened is Robin's fault, he refuses to let her speak, even telling her to shut up after supposedly asking her a whole series of direct questions. At the end he leaves the room before she can even begin to explain the situation.

Surveillance Drone: The Spy Pengling, which can also be used to access small tunnels, collect fur tufts from Snowstalkers and take selfies.