fish

TL;DR 8/10. Exploration is fantastic, hunger and thirst get old fast, and the horror comes from fear of the unknown, meaning as the player you can simply look things up to rid the game of any horror, while keeping most of the suspense and excitement.

Subnautica is a survival exploration game, but that genre name doesn't really explain the ratio of those two aspects correctly. The game is 90% exploration, 10% survival. If you enjoy the typical gameplay loop of exploring new places to discover new blueprints or recipes to unlock bigger or better gear that helps you explore more efficiently or new areas, then this game is for you because Subnautica delivers on that loop masterfully for hours and hours. The biomes are a joy to explore, as each is not only visually distinct, but also feature unique challenges to overcome. They all feel different from the others in ways that mean you never get tired. Just as one might be overstaying its welcome you're off to mastering the next.

For the survival side, the 10% doesn't fully capture the experience. It is really a tale of two halves. On one hand there is the bog-standard food and water need. As is typical in the survival crafting genre to the point of being a trope, this is a pressing concern in the early game that quickly turns annoying, pushing the player towards a more sustainable solution, in this case small scale farming. And as is typical, even this sustainable solution boils down to just being a chore you have to do every time you return to base, or right before leaving. By late-mid game I wish I could have toggled an option to turn hunger and thirst off, they just got in the way and I had already proven I solved them as a concern. Unfortunately, though the game does feature a "difficulty" setting where the game does turn ONLY these two off, you have to select it when you start a new save file, and don't have the option of swapping partway through a playthrough.

Okay so that was the down side of survival, the other side is something much more baked into the game, and makes me question bumping up the 10%. For the other hand is oxygen. It's an underwater game after all, of course oxygen matters, and it is beautifully baked into everything you do. It keeps you thinking, how deep can I dive, should I continue exploring this cave system or turn back, do I even remember how I got here? Looking back, I would think this would have turned annoying at some point, but it never did. By end game you have enough unlocks that you can take long dives, but even then you still need to be mindful, and this balance is handled expertly. Your exploration is perfectly tempered by this survival aspect, unlike the food and water that is more of a chore than a need.

I suppose the last thing to comment on is the horror elements, it has the horror tag right there at the top of the page. Is it horror? In my opinion Subnautica is the quintessential example of fear of the unknown. I am someone who does not touch horror. I get nightmares easily and my anxiety incapacitates me very quickly. The first time I tried to play this game I had to put it down after 9 hours because I couldn't handle it, not knowing what was in the depths paralyzed me so I had to drop the game.

My second attempt, the one I just completed before writing this, I went in after looking up what exactly was hiding down there. Armed with that knowledge I found the horror to be gone. The game was still suspenseful - scavenging a wreck while the shadow of a leviathan looms in the distance, or frantically surviving an attack from one to escape to safety - ridding myself of the fear of the unknown did nothing to diminish the excitement.

So is the game horror? Yes and no. If you want it to be because that's your jam, go in as blind as you can. Learn for yourself how to best handle the aggressive creatures in the deep. If you're like me, and you'd rather it not be a horror game, spend a bit of time researching the game, and armed with knowledge you'll better be able to handle what the game throws at you.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this game and will give it an 8/10. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it deserves the praise it gets, and I would say is a must play for all fans of the exploration genre.

No other game will give you the same feelings. Highly recommend. Shoutout my cuddlefish and the sea empress.