Looks fantastic but I stopped playing this a while ago so as not to spoil the full game experience. My understanding is the map is custom designed and not procedural so it seems like you’ll get one solid playthrough…anybody know for sure?
According to this post, it looks like it’s hand-made all the way. Particular elements might be random, but the world itself is fixed.
Still keeping a close eye on this and firing it up to dip my toes in, after updates. Will it become possible to switch back and forth between Survival and Freedom mode, at some point?
Oh interesting, I assumed it was just a random map. Having it be manually created actually makes me more interested in the game as exploring would be more worthwhile I think.
It is manually created, and it gets upgraded I think during each big beta release. The map has much more diversity and interesting topology now then it did the last time I picked it up. Progression in this game has a lot to do with exploring the different biomes and finding materials and recipes that only appear in certain areas of the map. I think the changes in the map seem to have smoothed out this progression a little bit. I can’t put my finger on it, but the progression “feels” better.
Fired this up for the first time in months and discovered that the escape pod now drifts away from the starting location, making it easy to get lost when returning home, if you haven’t deployed a beacon yet.
Crafting requires more blueprints and takes longer than before, but I like the change.
Breeding fish and hatching eggs is great. The mini Stalkers are cute. Kind of wish we could harvest Stalker Teeth.
Why doesn’t this game have something more substantial for the player to use as defense against sea monsters?
Unknown Worlds gives a reason:
I haven’t read all the comments here, but I’ll chime in here, as I’m the main reason we don’t have violent/weapons in the game.
Subnautica was being birthed right around the time of the Sandy Hook shooting. This was a particularly nasty shooting, although many people don’t realize America has school shootings every day. Every. Single. Day.
Yet, for reasons I cannot understand, our people and the corporations that influence our country want to continue making it easy for people to get, carry and use pistols, semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons.
I’ve never believed that video game violence creates more real-world violence. But I couldn’t just sit by and “add more guns” to the world either.
So Subnautica is one vote towards a world with less guns. A reminder that there is another way forward. One where we use non-violent and more creative solutions to solve our problems. One where we are not at the top of the food chain.
This is one of the more developed VR launch games, has anyone played it on the new headsets or a DK2? Water actually works pretty well with VR generally I think, the resolution limitations make sense in terms of what you can see underwater anyway.
They don’t realize it because it’s not true. Not even close. And not just because schools aren’t open on weekends!
While I applaud the sentiment behind his statement and especially his feeling of responsibility as someone who creates entertainment and therefore shapes culture, it doesn’t help to just make up facts. Although maybe he’s fudging it by including the notoriously violent Canadian and South American youths.
-Tom
I’ve seen the same misinformation spouted about school shootings all the time. I think it comes from some goofball chart someone published that counted any crime involving a weapon on school property in their stats, which was eventually turned into “There’s a school shooting every day in America!”
ShootingTracker.com, however, is based upon a different definition of mass shooting, one that (in keeping with the literal meaning of “shooting”) is based upon the total number of people shot (i.e., wounded or killed by gunfire) in a single incident rather than solely the number of victims killed.
Eh, don’t really care whether he is right or not about that statistic (probably not). I do like that he is actively trying to find solutions to game play problems that don’t just involve shooting baddies in the face. We really need more of that in video gaming.
I do. It’s an important enough issue that discussing it should involve something more than simplistic scare-mongering.
-Tom
To be honest, I don’t trust most statistics I read, especially the more ridiculous ones like this. If grad school taught me one thing, its that there is no such thing as unbiased statistics in reports and studies. Whether there are 30 school shoots a year or 300, it is still many many more than there should be.
Sure, but there’s a significant difference between 30 and 530 (which would the minimum if the Subnautica dev’s claim was true). I’m not trying to contradict you for the sake of it, but information is a very important tool when discussing and addressing difficult issues like school shootings. Garbage in can lead to garbage out.
But, yeah, even one is too many. That’s a statistic anyone can get behind. :)
-Tom
530? How many days a year do you have over there. Can I have some?
I bought this game recently and played a bit.
What I found is that the game is on a ealier phase of development than of my liking. Maybe on a early phase content-wise.
Some stuff was represented in the world has box with a text written on it (some mats). A bug sent my rescue capsule to a corner of the map.
And yet more stuff was showing craftable with not a defined role for me begginer ( gravity generating energy machine, what?).
I enjoyed swiming around, building stuff (that showed even more limits of the game).
I think I am going to wait another year to play this one.
The quote was that there are school shootings every single day. Since he used school shootings, plural, that’s at least two a day. 365x2 is, uh, 730. I have no idea how I got 530. Lemme go edit my post real quick before anyone notices.
-Tom
Yeah, this looks simply amazing. I am a bit sad it doesnt have controller support, because it would awesome on my bigscreen tv!