Return to Subnautica

Well we’re starting off the week by deciding *not* to post the post I was going to post about why blogging is such work for me right now, because of the reasons I explain in that post, because I just don’t want anyone to know how much work it is, which quickly kills off the era of “2019 is when I post my half-finished drafts even when they’re not done instead of letting them accumulate in Drafts for years on end.” Let’s just assume there isn’t a terrified artist child hiding behind these posts at all, cringing and holding his breath every time he hits that publish button, and I am just another confident egomaniacal writer who revels in forcing my thoughts and opinions on everyone out there!

I think I mentioned I’ve been playing a little bit of Subnautica every day. I’ve played for about a half hour every day since the 1st, which totals almost seven hours now. (I know these numbers to such precise detail because yes, as always, I pretty much record everything I play in OBS now. I’m using much more compression at least so the video files aren’t so big. There’s a fair amount of “down time” in the game which makes less interesting videos so I doubt I’ll be uploading them. I use them to remember what I did the previous game session and what I intended to do next.)

There are a few tedious aspects of the game that I’m struggling with but I won’t mention them in case someone comes along in the comments and says, “Oh, you just need to do X, Y, and Z and it gets easier.” I don’t really like to have problems solved for me. I like to figure them out on my own. That’s a big part of the game experience for me: Solving problems and surmounting obstacles.

Besides the fact that most of the game takes place underwater, which is a rich game world environment that is very rarely taken advantage of, the most interesting thing about Subnautica is that it’s the only survival game I can think of where you actually have a story objective. You’re not just surviving just for the heck of it, you’re actually trying to survive *until you are rescued* which implies there’s an end point to reach. I don’t think any other survival game has that. Every other game you just try to survive as long as you can until you either die or get bored and play something else.

Another interesting thing about Subnautica is that I have to come face-to-face with one of my biggest fears: Oceans. Oceans are pretty terrifying to me. And the stuff *in* oceans? Like, under the water? Ugh. Yuck. Some people are creeped out by spiders and snakes, for me it’s seeing all that creepy stuff under the water in an ocean. So you can imagine some of the big creatures floating around in the Subnautica ocean are creepy as hell to me. I can’t think of any other game that I’ve ever played, including a bunch of scary ones that are *supposed* to creep you out, that have creeped me out so much. Sometimes I go up and swim on the surface just so I can’t see what’s underneath of me as I pass over it.

Anyway it’s a fun game, in short bursts at least. I’m not sorry I bought it in Early Access (in a sale for less $10).

Related

• Cynicism vs. Observation
• Subnautica