Unlikely anyone will read this, being a LTTP post for a 3 year old (or functionally 7 year old game), but I just beat the game and I am exhausted and in awe and about to unload stream of consciousness style….
About 25 hours of play. That was the most stressful, terrifying, and yet bizarrely tedious game I have ever played and yet the tedious aspects somehow fit perfectly with the ethos of the game.
The most important recommendation I would make is don't read ANYTHING about the game beforehand. Go in as blind as possible. And I realize what I am asking when I say this but try to complete the whole game without looking anything up. It will be a challenge but, akin to The Witness, the joy of self-discovery in Subnautica is the most rewarding aspect of the game. If done truly blind, exploring the terrifying and awe-inspiring world around you was a powerful enough experience that I found myself approaching the game as if I were personally trapped on a ocean world. It truly was that engrossing. I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway and my Wilson was always at risk of being destroyed, me along with it. Reaching the end of Subnautica is one of the most satisfying accomplishments in my 35 plus years of gaming.
Random thoughts (including Spoilers) below:
The desire to stay where the world is known and safe is palpable. I would find reasons to do everything I could in an area I felt I understood because it was so damn scary to venture into the unknown. We are talking sweaty shaky hands, racing heartbeats bounding through the chest, and the need for pre-arranged breaks to get me out of that mindspace. And that was before I knew about the Reaper.
The first time that Reaper grasped my Seamoth in his mouth, took us deeper beyond the Aurora, and left the ship with 5% health… stranding me…. my heart is beating in my throat as I fumble through inventory to try and repair the ship… damn, why do my fingers feel so clumsy!?… the Reaper's roars echo through the crushing darkness… he is toying with me before the deathblow… even recalling induces chills.
Because of that Reaper encounter — and I didn't even die!! — I refused to take the Cyclops anywhere fearing its destruction. Same goes for the Prawn. I literally reached a point where the Seamoth could go no further and I knew exactly what I needed to do to proceed and the steps to do so were, in retrospect, not actually frightening and yet I refused and loitered my way through a few hours of inventory management and storage clean-up and literally throwing salt into trashcans. Anything to avoid the unknown.
And I was right to be afraid because while the vast majority of the game you are actually unharmed or even unharassed, there is this foreboding and pervasive risk that something is hiding out there just beyond where you can't see but goddamn you can hear it. Like clockwork the roars and the groans thrill through your ears, through some of the best audio mixing I have heard in a long time. You owe it to yourself to play with headphones as sound in the game is absolutely superb and by superb I mean "oops I crapped my pants that felt so close right behind my right shoulder" superb.
[Placeholder for more thoughts as the game was such a moving experience for me that I just want to think about it some more….]
