Gameplay and Story Impressions:

For the longest time ever I have always avoided survival games. I dipped on Minecraft before it started becoming mainstream, but I don't really understand what made it so popular. There's no goal, and there is no "finish line" so to speak. Moreover, the world felt extremely bland. Then I started avoiding Minecraft and Roblox. I played Terraria for a while but don't really enjoy it much either. It was for this reason I have also avoided Subnautica until I saw how many people praised it on Reddit. I thought I would also try it as I already have it on my library from Humble Bundle. Boy was this truly a good decision.

When I booted up Subnautica, I had the feeling that it was going to be different from the others. And indeed, it sets itself apart from the whole garbage heap that is Early Access survival games by setting its identity as a story-driven game. For starters, it actually had a meaningful story from the get go. You know the gist of you being in such an alien planet right from the start of the game. And as you explore the world, you'll discover abandoned PDAs that gives you an idea on what happens to other people who were stranded with you. The story of the game is delivered in a way not unlike Dark Souls; many of its lores/narratives are not told via cutscenes but instead through the written messages. The stories told on these messages are also open ended, leaving most of the details left to be interpreted by the players, which is quite nice.

The world not being procedurally generated also works with Subnautica's story-driven format. All biomes and interest points have fixed locations; only resources are randomized. This is certainly better than other games in the genre as the world felt more 'alive'. Being a survival game though, Subnautica does not try to hold your hand. However it still occasionally guides you to interest points through its various radio transmissions and PDA data logs. If you have a bad sense of direction like me, you can rest assured as these interest points are always near areas capable of advancing your story points.

Despite being a story-driven game, you are not forced to go to these areas though. If you so desire, you can always ignore the story and just play Subnautica as if it were any other survival game. Even so, the game is still full of charm with its mechanics and biomes. Exploration is also encouraged even if you don't care about the story, as you can scan various devices sunken on the sea floor to unlock it for crafting. It feels so cliche to say this, but the game was very immersive. Travelling the deep sea gives me a sense of dread which I haven't experienced in any other game before. Going blind also helps with the sense of immersion especially when you don't know what to expect on new biomes.

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Cons:

Unfortunately, the game is not without its own quirks. The procedural generation of the resources can be quite frustrating. I can accept randomized resource points, but randomizing scannable devices is not without its consequences. Some players can unlock Beacons without any effort, while I had to search frantically for it for hours. I also unlocked the Submarine base "Cyclops" for crafting on my last stages of the game, which made my mid-game a bit harder. You get the point. I think some fundamental devices should not be randomized to avoid some unintentional difficulties. Furthermore, Subnautica is still quite unoptimized in general. The game might not look demanding, but even with a GTX 980 I could not play it without frame stutters. I could not reach a constant 60 FPS on medium settings, so it may require a more beefy card to fully enjoy the game without these performance issues.

Despite all these issues though, I still fully enjoy Subnautica for what it is. That game managed to get me hooked from when I first started until I fully completed the game. After hearing how The Long Dark is apparently also story-driven just like this game, I'm excited to also experience the game.