Game:

Subnautica (2018)

Duration: 13:18

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I figured I'd give this one a try.

I saw a lot of Subnautica playthrough videos but never really felt compelled to try it. But when I found out there was a way to play in VR, I at least wanted to have a look. I played this through Steam/Steam VR.

Immediate feedback:
Minor:
- Some scene elements are removed - I couldn't see the ship explode as I was escaping in the pod, and the flying metal plate didn't reach my face before the scene went to black.
- Fire effects are reduced or gone. There is no fire in the escape pod when I'm supposed to put it out, so I have no idea if I succeeded in doing so.
- The Aurora is a giant flat billboard in the distance, which doesn't translate well to the sense of approaching it or traveling laterally to it.
- The bubbles coming from my mask are too far away - I feel like I'm swimming inside a larger bubble.
- No movement transitions when climbing ladders or entering hatches.
- The floating UI element for interaction doesn't need to shrink as it recedes against the object - it could stay the same rendered size so that it remains readable even at a distance.

Uncomfortable:
- One of the UI highlight elements (square of the Fabricator menu, first time I opened it) is only visible in the right eye, which is disconcerting.
- I can't look at the fish I have in my hand - only 25% of it is visible, and I have to crane my eye to even look at that much of it, which is very uncomfortable.
- I can only alter my travel pitch by looking up and down, so I can't swim straight up if needed.

Gamebreakers:
- Subtitles (wait, nevermind, there are none yet) are too far down. I can't see them in the headset.
- The inventory screen is WAY too close to my face. It's 6 inches away or so and looks tiny. It needs to be a couple feet away at least and enlarged to compensate.

Average:
- Despite the lovely creature models, VR betrays their detail and animation - they appear very simple close up. Still a certain amount of cool, though.

Good:
- Water looks great! The waves are fully 3D represented. It's a nice effect.

If not for these discomforts, I might have been willing to try the game more. There absolutely needs to be a VR sub-menu that offers some comfort options. I will not be playing this game yet - with these oddities, the VR comes off as a gimmick and not entirely taken seriously. Granted, what works well works pretty well. But the immediate oddities just get in the way of it, and I'm not interested in playing a 20+ hour game working around them.

The framerate is fine - I'm running an RTX 3080 LHR.

Maybe the Oculus version is better for the Quest implementation. I have no idea. I don't get the impression from posts that either version has significant differences in the VR implementation.

Played on a i7-8700, RTX 3080 LHR, 16GB 2666, Oculus Quest 2 w/Oculus Link cable (2Gbps connection) @1840p and 90Hz.

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