Subnautica: Below Zero

This game does not understand what made its predecessor great. And don't bother buying any future Subnautica games, as those will suffer from the greed of its new owner 'Krafton'.

First off, as this game was originally a dlc-turned-spinoff of Subnautica, I encourage you to read my review of that first, as many of the things I praised about the game I mentioned apply here as well. That being said, let’s dive in! (Warning, a few accidental puns ahead!) For many of you looking to pick up Below Zero, you may have heard of the community's general opinion of how it stacks up against the first game. I however, feel comparison is not the way to go but rather looking at BZ as an extension of the Subnautica universe, and enjoying another dive into 4546B’s oceans. Below Zero has an extremely in depth world and story to explore, and those should not be overshadowed by Subnautica’s existence. That being said, there are many things Below Zero does right. It boasts quite a bit more new features, settings, and content, and they combine to make an engaging and enjoyable experience for fans of Subnautica. First of all, Below Zero’s biome and creature designs are truly p...

Though it introduces a number of welcome Quality of Life updates, Below Zero is generally inferior to the original Subnautica. The map is smaller, the story is a jumbled mess with half of it not even mattering, and many of the new creatures fail to be as iconic as any of the originals. Also, I really dislike the voiced protagonist and above ground ice-sheet sections. With all that said, the game is still Subnautica at its core, so fans of the originally will probably enjoy it. But if you're new, just go with the first one.

Where do I even begin? There are so many elements in this game that feel frustrating more than anything. Let me start with the seatruck. The concept is great, but the execution, not so much. Especially with the claustrophobic map. You're basically gonna bump into everything, because of how big your seatruck is and you'll constantly need to fix it. To put this into perspective, it is easier to drive the cyclops in subnautica than it is to drive the seatruck in below zero. The second problem is that even with the horsepower upgrade, it is incredibly slow, making it not worth it to use over the seaglide. The second major problem is the story. It's confusing and you almost never know where you're supposed to go next. An example of this is when I tried to get to an area which I assume the game didn't want me to see yet, so they just put a bunch of invisible walls and called it. This makes the game even more frustrating. My final point with the story is that it doesn't really have a resolu...

It is good enough, but definitely not Subnautica. The fear of the unknown does not shine through as a claustrophobic direction was chosen instead of the open seas of Subnautica. The Highlights: The last half of the storyline is good. Some of the mechanics have been refined from the previous Subnautica. It is definitely a good Subnautica DLC. The Bad: -They clearly were trying new ideas with this game, leveraging the success of the previous for support. It is none more obvious that in the character you play. She is the Subnautica version of a loose cannon with nothing to lose. Her takes on locations and events are timed poorly, distracting from the player's thoughts or even the desire to read/ listen to a new log. That they are often shallow turns them into annoying distractions. Unknown Worlds Entertainment then decides later to shoehorn her into a conscientious individual box, which does not come across well at all. -A third of the story occurs on land. For those that played Subnau...

Well Subnautica.. what can I say that hasn't already been said. But while Subnautica Below Zero is the predecessor to the first it barely takes the same dripping atmosphere and destroys it with something more action/narrative oriented, and they fell depressingly short of telling as good of a story as the first. The forced gay relationship felt like pandering more than being inclusive and should have been the early warning sign as to what would happen with Subnautica 2. This had the opportunity to be an industry changing game and they fell short in every department. Underwhelming numbers of leviathans and not so diverse species to discover. The map is disappointingly small and resources are far too easy to find really making any difficulty the game did have completely disappear. This could have been overshadowed by the narrative but as I stated prior the story is very disingenuous and feels forced in every department. After playing on multiple different platforms I have to say the PC ve...

pretty nice game although the characters are pretty cringy and not well writen in my opinion still a very good exploration game just not as good as subnatica

Compared to Subnautica, this game feels cheap. What bothered me the most were the movement speed and the cheap story-telling.

I feel that this game is on par with the original Subnautica. I really liked the new sea truck, there are great new tools like the handheld scanner, and each biome feels like it has more unique flora than the original game. Lots of people seemed to take issue with the player character, but I haven't had any qualms with her design so far. There's also great new characters. I've seen a few reviews state that this game is pretty good but not as good as the original Subnautica, but I have had the same amount of fun and pleasure with both.

Bought, played for about an hour. Instantly feels smaller, the voiced protagonist breaks the immersion of the original, diary entries are cringy, change of voice actor for the PDA which I found annoying more than soothing, bugs from the get go, improperly mapped controls, Yeah avoid in my opinion.