I “won” the game today after 25 hours of play, and really enjoyed my time in this interesting world.
Some mostly spoiler free criticisms of the game:
Like everyone here I think there should be a way to expand personal inventory.
I also thought the game needs to communicate better. It took me awhile to realise I was missing out on the story because I didn’t have a radio in my base, it took me awhile to realise where to find certain things even though I knew I was looking in the right areas (not exploring, but going around in circles over and over), and finally it took me awhile to realise just what I was supposed to do to progress the story sometimes. Some people might like this, and that’s fine, but for those that want a little more direction there should be a better way than simply looking up wikis or trial and error. If I didn’t look at a wiki at a few key moments I would wager it would have taken me about 15 more hours to finish this game, and not in a good way.
The last 5 hours of the game is half interesting story revelations and half boring and needless back and forth between a base and the edge of the map.
That’s all I can think of that annoyed me. The rest was magic. I loved exploring the underwater biomes, I loved the sound and visual effects when you start going deeper, and the discovery of finding new blueprints and toys to play with. I really enjoyed the story, I thought it was original and kept things focused on the end goal (which is spoiler alert: to find a way to leave the world). I loved the lack of violence and the way you felt like the captain and pilot and mechanic and firefighter and labourer of your own 10-man submarine all at the same time.
There was a bit of discussion one week ago in this thread about the lack of map in the game.
I think in truth it’s a good point of the game, not a bad one. With a good, useful map, it would risk in trivializing the experience too much, with the player limiting himself to travelling blindly from point A to B. Without a map, he is forced to play around the game world and observe more.
Same as most stuff: you scan a broken beacon fragment somewhere. I think you need to scan 2 fragments. They usually are not very far away from the initial zone, but they are a bit smaller than other ‘fragments’ (like say, the fragment of a bioreactor), so sometimes you can skip over them.
I finished it and really enjoyed it. Fortunately I built a crafting station on my cyclops because getting to and from the inactive lava zone is a PITA. I do not think Ill play it again though since I already know the story and generally how the game will flow.
Food and Water were never a problem, but they sure where an annoyance. I think If I had played without those options enabled it would have been a better experience.
I still think the game sorely lacks a map. They really need to add an in-game 3d map you can pull up. One of the most important functions being able to see where you have NOT explored yet.
i just did my first ragequit. here i was puttwring along in my little minisub. I had it kitted out nicely with a mod to let it dive deeper, a solar cell and some other gubbins. i heard strange noises but i wanted to scan that thingy. next thing i hear a roar, alarm beeps and see a humongous big honking monster swim off with my baby in its jaws. alt-f4
I found a hidden alien? cave with some kind of portal. But it was empty. No aliens, no pda, no objects, nothing. For now I marked the location with a beacon…
Where do you get the pre-order pet fish? Do you need to enter a key in the main screen? Does it just appear? Do you have to find it? I haven’t played the game in over a year. Well before they put that update out.
Also does the cinematic trailer showing what happened on the planet before your arrival, does that have any spoilers in it? Trying to blank my mind so everything feels fresh, but if that’s not story bound spoiler if it’s like their preview beta movies I’ll watch!
For some eggs, you might have to add specific items into the containment tank, but at least when I hatched a cuddlefish a few weeks ago I just tossed it in and it hatched after a while.
I don’t think that is true. I’ve hatched eggs of most of the predators in the game without needing to do anything else. My tank did have some blood and green kelp in it for looks though. Maybe that was required?
I ended my hardcore play through with two cuddles. I’m not sure how many cuddle eggs there are, but they are not random I think.
I missed a couple of days of comments. The game saves automatically when you enter/leave a base, the pod, and if I recall correctly, any vehicle. There is no manual save, so in a sense they took away save scrumming and forced you to play through. It’s a design choice they made, I’m sure, but I don’t know the why behind the reason. I think it’s similar to the map issue. They wanted to force exploration. You almost HAVE to, since you have to wander around enough that you recognize underwater areas, and using that and your beacons, you learn the world manually. No skipping ahead. Since it is a pre-rendered and complete world map, I guess that makes sense, in a way, but they could have at least given something like a vehicle or base upgrade that perhaps scanned and showed a whole world map. That way players could plan pathing, bases, resource gathering points, etc.
I feel this way too. I’m not saying it took away from the overwhelming positives from the game, but there were some points where I wasn’t led by the nose, and with no map and no overall understanding of where I had been, I wandered around aimlessly for longer than I needed to.
It’s my GOTY as well, but it’s January. That being said, I was overwhelmed with wonder, amazement at times and quivering with fear in others. They NAILED that. Kudos to the art and level design team. They also nailed the various bio noises and ambient music. It made me feel peaceful, it amped my fear, it made me deathly afraid of the depths, etc.
So when one completes the main quest is there anything left to do in the game? In No Man’s Sky, you can continue to explore, work on your base, etc., but with just one underwater world in Subnautica what’s left when you’re done with the storyline?
Currently nothing, but there was some talk of DLC? And during the ending you can see if you look some potential areas of expansion-ness. But yeah, this game has a definitive ending.
(You will have a save game that is right before you hit the ‘I win’ button if you want to ool around in game a bit more afterwards.)
