Subnautica VR Review Featuring Oculus Rift and Seasickmess Tablets
267Ahoy you salty sea men! Permission to come aboard? Subnautica Oculus Rift VR PC review!
We’re not usually a new game review channel, and like to stick to the safety of the old stuff, but Subnautica is a game I think can fall into both, as I actually added it to my steam wishlist 3 years ago!
After be stung a few times before, I actually held out on getting it to see if it actually would leave the so called early access that a lot of games just perpetually stay in , but praise jesus and the mother mary, here it is in a full release. I’ll try and keep this spoiler free, as part of the joy of this game is finding stuff for yourself.
The footage in the background is not going to match to what I am saying, as for the purpose of recording and differentiating from 3 years of early access vids, I’m playing it in here in VR. I didn’t record a huge amount though, as it honestly made me feel sick as a dog. Is this some sort of total immersion experience? If someone was throwing buckets of water at me, I could truly understand what it would be like to be in urgent need of medical attention on a alien water planet.
Single player games may be withering in their representation in the Survival genre, but what Unknown Worlds Entertainment have achieved is brilliant. First things first, this is a great sub-20 quid game. That is not patronising by stating the mid point price tag, what we need is more of these. In less than 20 hours. I had got the ending. There is still plenty to find and most things i haven't built, but for those 20 hours, I had completely got my money's worth. I can't be putting 100+ hours in before i can make a gun.
There is a big, but not huge, amount of content. There is a large but not massive map to explore. You can play it in different ways if you don't want to worry about having to keep getting a big gulp of air and turning fish into water. You are middle of the food chain, so not much is attacking you, and if they are it’s probably your own fault. There is definitely the standard Peter to Paul development tree of making something so you can collect something to make the original thing better so you collect more of the second, but in total fairness, the grinding felt balanced and not a ploy to extend playtime.
This is mirrored in actual movement. You are slow as shit to start, but that doesn't matter as you are vulnerable and won’t want to go very far. As you develop tech to move quicker, you are doing so coz you’re travelling further. It’s a nice gradual progression slope. What I would say is that some materials are an absolute bollock ache to gather for no real reason. Why would silver be harder to find than gold?! This isn't saying that distant water planets may not have a different composition, where you can't move for big piles of gold, but more to do with the fact that silver is needed for some of the low level upgrades that you need to actually make some progress. Also, if you’re playing on lad mode, there is death, and at the start probably a lot of it. But all you’ll do is drop some stuff and start again from the escape pod, so it’s an inconvenience rather than a roadblock.
I can't really say much to the plot, apart from there is one (of sorts). 95% of plot progression is done through listening to audio logs and finding PDA’s of long dead crewmates. What you do with them is up to you. There are some certain specific events and things that have to be done, but keeping it spoiler free, but there was one seemingly major event that I missed because I was too far away without a battery to make it, and it seemed to make no difference whether i witnessed it or not. The game just carried on. There is also a freedom of exploration to a point, where you can go where you like out but not necessarily down from the off, but will probably die by drowning or exposure if you don't take the time to plan.
When I compare this to other survival sims, I’m actually happy to get to do this one on my own, at my own pace. From my experience of playing a fair bit of Rust, it is mental to actually make progress. It may be annoying to find a single piece of silver, but that is peanuts to grinding out several thousand bits of scrap to only get raided when you go offline.
It’s also a really pretty game. In the daytime, It’s so bright, with crazy neon colours. At night, it’s Spook City mixed with Cyberdog in Camden.
All in all, a very very solid recommendation. Sound, gameplay, Design, even the plot. It’s all there. Leave the VR out though, unless you are one of those hard cases that don't even act scared on the big boy rides at Alton Towers.
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